


The Bell's Toll

by MonstrousRegiment



Series: Bell's Toll [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Baskerville needs his own warning, Dark!Charles, Erik is a psychopath, M/M, Telepathic violence, cavalier use of violence and gore, in which Charles is a sociopath, no one is surprised by this, timelines what timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:37:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 88,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonstrousRegiment/pseuds/MonstrousRegiment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>XMFC/Nikkita crossover for a prompt in the Kinkmeme. </p><p>A sort of fusion between the two series, with a healthy (or not) dose of my own imagination. Charles Xavier goes to prison, and is recruited by a spy/assassin division of the government. Dismal a beginning as this might look, it unbelievably goes downhill. Erik, the necessary stoic ex-military man, gets sidled with him. Not a single person is amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. God's got this all wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangea/gifts).



_I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything._

Charles put the book down, blinking at the underside of the bunk above. 

“Only after we lose everything,” he murmured, “are we free to become anything.” 

The man on the bunk above him made no reply, but to turn around in his bed and snort in his sleep. Charles let the book rest on his chest, open, and closed his eyes. 

He’d read this book many times, and while the empirical knowledge of it had been entertaining and the meaning of its words had come across well, delivered eloquently by Palahniuk’s simple and straightforward style, he thought now that he’d never genuinely understood it. 

He did now—and oh, how well indeed. 

He turned his head and stared at the open barred door of his cell. Beyond it he could see the railing of the first level balcony; behind that, across the D Wing common area, the railing on the other side, and the cells on the opposite wall. All the same: four-by-four, three cement walls and one constructed of heavy iron bars painted pasty white, turned vague cream by time. One window, small and high-up, barred on the inside, covered by mesh on the outside. One desk. One toilet seat. One sink. 

“This is your life,” Charles told himself, absently. “And it’s ending, one minute at a time.” 

He sighed and sat up, closing his copy—the prison’s copy actually—of _The Fight Club_ and pushing his hair back from his forehead. He needed a haircut. The only reason he’d gone so long without was that his hair was often the only indication that time even went past in this place. 

Time was an endless, relentless loop of boredom, folding in on itself like hot steel pounded over and over to become the long blade of a sword. Nothing changed. The date might always be the same, no day going past, no hour growing late, and Charles might never be the wiser. 

If he rifled through the minds of others, he could tell how long he’d been here, and how in that time he had changed. The few that noticed him—the few that had not shown signs of outward hostility and so Charles had let be—saw him thinner, paler, eyes wider and drier. Quieter. 

Charles thought about it for a moment. _Quieter_. It was true—he didn’t speak with anyone, not really. 

Then again, what could there be to speak of? Half of the men in this wing were murderers, the other half thieves, three-fourths were psychopaths and one-fifth sociopaths, at least two were bipolar, and Charles was quite certain one was quite probably schizophrenic. Only one third had finished high-school, and only three of the one hundred and fifty residents had started college—only to drop out two semesters in. 

Twenty-one were willing to rape him. Two had even tried, and although they would never be making that mistake again, the memory still gave Charles chills. 

It was better he was quiet and lonely. Though the lack of a clique implied loss of the safety given by numbers, Charles preferred the solitude. His telepathy, even restrained as it was by the drugs they gave him, was enough to dissuade any attackers from their intentions. Charles might be short, he might be slight and thin, he might be more of an academic than an athlete—but he was far from helpless. 

Without the constant brush of other people’s social requirements, however, life was a dreary thing. Charles was used to the company of sharp, educated minds, eloquent vocabulary spilling from witty mouths. The only witty man in the C Wing that Charles could hope to have an interesting conversation with, sadly, was the schizophrenic. 

His mind was nothing short of psychedelic. 

Fifteen years of this, dear God. 

At least he’d gotten over the dismal distress of the lack of sharp long-range telepathy after the first two weeks. That time was lost, for which he was marginally grateful; he’d been nearly comatose, largely catatonic, and mostly unresponsive, until they’d adjusted the dose to the perfect level. He was still himself, only— _less_. What remained was the touch-telepathy and a vague, weak version of his long-range, limited to the pathetic distance of the confines of the Wing. 

Nothing compared to what he used to be. 

But then what was for it? What did he need his telepathy for, here in this miserable place? So he could peek into the thoughts of others, overhear their contemplations of violence and rage, relive with them the memories of their crimes, oversee like a watcher the unfolding of their vicious minds? 

There was nothing there for him but madness, contagious and pervasive, as capable to eat through him as any acid. 

Charles turned in his bed and sat with his back to the wall, rolling his head back. 

_On the charge of Second Degree Murder, we the Jury find the defendant, Charles Francis Xavier, guilty._

He closed his eyes. 

Fifteen years. 

He looked down at his hands, open and spread on his lap. Long-fingered, violinist hands, skin pale and smooth, nailbeds square and symmetrical. The hands of a genetics professor. If he’d been in a foolish mood, he’d told himself he was lucky his jumpsuit was this color—whereas the grey brought out his eyes, the orange worked awful with his English coloring. 

How he missed England. His dual citizenship had done nothing to protect him from a conviction in New York, and he’d have to serve his time out where the crime had been committed. 

Second degree murder. 

With a sigh, Charles shut down that line of reasoning. It took him nowhere. Over and over he told himself the facts, and time and time again he came to the same conclusion—pointlessly, for no one would listen. He could plead and scream and rave and nothing would change. With his telepathy restrained, there was nothing he could do. 

He crossed his legs and picked the book up again. He had read it many times, but short of staring at the wall and counting ticking seconds, there was really just nothing else to do. 

It was a pity he had such a perfect memory for books. His telepathy afforded him the ability of controlling almost the entirety of his mind, providing him with a nearly eidetic memory and the uncanny capacity to compartmentalize and catalogue data, filing it away for later purposes. He could read a book, finish it and pick up a decade later and he still remembered not only the twists and turns of plot, but also the exact wording of entire paragraphs. 

He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, searching the compartments of his mind, ruffling through files, until he found the box he was looking for: _There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness._

“I don’t know, Mr. Dumas,” Charles murmured thoughtfully. “I should say I’ve never known great happiness, that I’ve had rather a regular life, yet this I believe is the most miserable that any man can ever fear to be.”

Except, he supposed, those in death-row. But then they had a solace; their doom, while terrible, was short lived. The end was within sight. 

Fifteen years. 

He stared down at the cover of the book in his lap, the bold letters, the curled fist like the imprint of a punch. 

“I want to set fire to the Louvre,” he quoted. “Wouldn’t _that_ be something.”

He heard the familiar racket of a police baton beating on the bars of the cell doors as a guard made his round, and listened idly to the sound, as if he could, merely by willing it, count the impacts of hard plastic upon metal. _Beats counting the seconds, I suppose/i >, he told himself, half-amused. _

Then the racket stopped, and the guard stood in front of their cell door. He tossed Charles a cloth bag, which he caught deftly, if puzzled. 

“Xavier,” he said, leaning his shoulder on the edge of the open door. “Pack up your stuff, you’re moving out.”

Charles arched his brows, “Moving? Wherever to?”

The guard shrugged, “Does anybody tell me anything? No. Do I care? No. Just pick up your shit.” 

“I didn’t request a transfer,” Charles frowned, even as he got off the bed. He looked around, grabbed the few belongings he had brought with him from Outside—mostly books and papers, and one treasure photograph of back when his father, Brian, had been alive. 

“We don’t cater to your every need, man,” the guard said, grabbing his arm to lead him across the balcony, down the stairs and into the common room.

What followed was a long while, hard to keep track of. A stretch of time difficult to remember on account of hundreds of sheets of paperwork changing hands in front of him, people signing them repeatedly, questions being asked from guard to guard and doubts being uttered but never really addressed. 

By the time Charles stood in the outside detention hall, he was quite certain no one really knew what was going on here, not even the people that were going to drive him. It was strange, and peculiar, and Charles knew he ought to be concerned and suspicious, but the drugs had slammed doors on four fifths of his rational mind, and he could not bring himself to express nothing more than child-like curiosity. 

It irritated him, on the one hand, because he knew he had always been a sharp, brilliant man, an excellent judge of character and especially capable of unraveling tangled situations. But it felt like half his brain had decided to pack up and take a vacation, and the remaining half was content with just watching things unfold as they would. 

“But where are we going?” he asked, because he felt he should, when they gave him a paper bag with his old clothes, his wrist-watch, wallet, and a few bits and odds he had had with him at the time of his arrest. 

The man at the other side of the bullet-proof glass shrugged. 

“Just do what you’re told, Xavier,” one of the guards said, pushing him in the direction of the two marshals that would be taking him to his new home. 

“I am,” Charles protested. “But if I’m being driven to some place far out where you can shoot me in the back of the head and bury me like a dog, I’d like to be forewarned. I never did write a will.” 

“I’m tempted,” the guard sneered at him. “Fucking mutie.”

“And I,” Charles said, smiling softly, “am tempted to reveal those fantasies you have about letting the Major fuck your mouth and then come all over your nose. But I never _would_ —oh, _blast_ it, how careless of me.” 

The guard landed one punch on his face before the marshals broke it up. One of them, the shorter one, grabbed Charles harshly by the arm and led him to the sleek black car, rolling his eyes. 

“That was patently stupid,” he commented as he shoved Charles in the backseat. A mesh of sturdy steel separated the backseat from the front. “I thought you were supposed to be smart, Xavier.” 

“I was supposed to be a great many things, Marshal Wickers,” Charles murmured. “Yet I find I am not the least of them by half.” 

“You’re very British,” the other man said, as his partner—Marshal Nixon—slid into the passenger seat. Wickers started the engine, backed off the parking lot and moved onto the route, picking up speed quickly. 

“That at least, I am afraid, shan’t be changed by months in a prison cell.” 

Only then did Charles realize it was getting dark—the sun was setting, relinquishing terrain in the sky to the fat full moon and its cohort of bright stars. 

“Peculiar hour for a transfer,” Charles pointed out, and his telepathy felt restless like a cockroach trapped in a glass, scrabbling anxiously to get out of its barriers and fly free. 

The marshals made no reply. 

“Hm,” Charles rolled his head back, sliding down in the seat to rest it on the seat, and looked out the window to the landscape rushing past, blurred in the growing gloom of twilight. 

_Curiouser and curiouser_ , he mused, and wondered what he would be thinking, how his mind would be working, if he wasn’t drugged quite literally out of it. 

Eventually he must have fallen asleep. 

He must have fallen asleep, because he only woke to the screech of twisting metal and the hard tug of his seatbelt crushing his chest as he surged up against it. The sky became the ground and then the ground returned, vindictive, to claim the passenger side of the car---Charles’ head slammed against the window pane and the glass shattered in a million little fragments, glittering like diamonds in the moonlight. Once again shy the ground disappeared, only to return a second later against the ceiling. 

The car swayed once, wheels spinning madly in the air like an upended turtle. 

Charles’ mind stuttered and failed to comprehend the situation. He was hanging head-down from the seatbelt. When he flicked his eyes open but a second he could see blood pooling directly above—under—whatever—him. His head felt like it was on fire. It hurt to breathe. 

His telepathy scrambled, came up against the glass dome of the drugs, and turned inwards to surmise the damage. Devastation. Everything had caught fire, his mind was ablaze, flames raged through his thoughts like sparks on dry grass. _Pain pain it hurts so much make it stop make it stop you know how.  
No I don’t_, he told himself, and closed his eyes. The power to turn off the pain receptors throughout his body, to disconnect the electrical signals from his limbs to his brain, laid locked away beyond the border of the glass dome. It was there, but it might as well have not; he could not reach it. 

Possibly he passed out. He came to once again with the wrenching sound of pained metal as the door to his side was torn away and flung out in the distance. For a moment he saw the stars, and then someone leaned on, cursed loudly and shifted closer, grabbing the back of Charles’ prison outfit with a firm hand. 

“I’m going to open the seatbelt, so brace yourself,” the man said. 

_Funny notion_ , Charles thought vaguely, and choked, “Can’t.”

“Scheisse,” the man hissed venomously, and switched tactics, sliding fully into the car so he was sitting directly under Charles’ hanging body. He wound an arm under Charles’ chest and braced his weight on his shoulder. “This’ll hurt.”

It did. Charles heard himself cry out sharply, a broken-off choke of agony, and once again lost consciousness. 

The following were flashes, lightening-strikes of consciousness that allowed him glimpses of his surroundings and the feeling of his own broken body, handled none too gently. Gaps in his awareness made it impossible to get a full picture, but he got a series of still-frames. 

The stars. A silhouette against the moon. Someone leaning over him. Raised voices. Pressure on his skull, fire in his mind, _pain pain turn it off shake it away_. A flash of something red, the smell of—sulfur? More pain. A white room, a hard bed under him, a bright light above him. People in white lab-coats—doctors? The jab of a needle on the crook of his arm. 

Then he slept.


	2. Chapter 2

Charles woke up as lucid as he’d ever been; a long stretch from his normal awakening process in the last several weeks. 

It took him a fraction of a second to recognize his mind, expanded and limitless, free of drugs and restrictions. He stretched out his awareness, the fine thin threads of silver that form his spider-web spreading out subtle, silent, exploring. 

He was in a large compound—a great building, similar in layout and construction to the prison, only the intent is different. Buildings have awareness; years and years of human consciousness seeping through the walls and soaking into the core of the structure. If those who walk daily through its corridors know the purpose of the building, then the building knows as well. 

_Share your secrets_ , he suggested, skating tendrils of sharp awareness over the smooth painted walls of corridors and hallways, up staircases and down elevator shafts into— _ah_. 

_Awake, professor?_ The voice was female and teasing, amused. 

Charles was startled. Hyper-aware after weeks of leashes, his telepathy folded inwards for protection, throwing up impenetrable walls topped with steel knife-points. Wincing in the aftermath, Charles tempered down the protection, settling down to a simple brick wall crowned with broken glass. A somewhat inelegant but solid defense. 

_You have me at a disadvantage_ , he sent, unerringly polite. Charles had spent sufficient time in England to learn how to wield politeness as a weapon. _To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?_

_You’ll meet me soon enough, sugar._

It was unlike Charles to be so easily irritated, and he thought perhaps a residue of the drugs could be making him grumpy. He catalogued the reaction and let it go, like a hot-air balloon set free. No point in lingering to distasteful inclinations. 

He was not fond of pet-names, and he was even less partial to condescension. It would not do, however, to let her know what irritated him. Those who knew how to hurt you tended to use that knowledge, and Charles had learned at an early age that providing anyone with that power was far from wise. 

He felt the woman’s curiosity, tinged with amusement. 

_Very nice. I didn’t know you were quite this well trained. Who was your teacher?_

_Life, the universe, and everything_ , he answered vaguely, withdrawing half-way from the mindspace to pay attention instead to the room he was in. White walls, white ceiling and tiled black floor. No windows. A desk and a chair, a Spartan bed with white covers and light blue sheets. A white metal cabinet to do, Charles imagined, as a wardrobe. 

It looked like the room one might expect to find in an asylum. 

Yet if he had been deemed feeble-minded and moved to an asylum, surely he would have been more heavily drugged, not the other way around. 

He could feel the woman’s mind, scratching carefully at his walls, prodding, pinching. She wanted to know how good he was at defending himself. 

_Good enough, I assure you_ , he sent out, ill-pleased, barring her access. _Kindly refrain from doing that._

Her laughter was like the sound of diamonds grinding together. Her power seemed to slither against the walls of his mind, but she didn’t manage—or perhaps didn’t even really try—to break in. After another moment of forcing her presence on him, she simply slid away. 

Charles turned his attention back to the building, to its bricks and columns and linoleum-covered floors. 

Classrooms, gymnasiums, locker rooms adjoined to communal bathrooms, a great Olympic pool, a wide sports lawn, training areas, conference rooms. A shooting range. Charles dug a layer deeper. A training facility for operatives.

“Spies and assassins,” he mused, folding back the covers to get out of bed. He found he was dressed in a loose white shirt and grey pants, secured with a drawstring low on his hips. He tightened the string and cast his mind back to remember. 

The transfer from the prison, unannounced and unexplained. The lack of answers. The crash. He’d been hurt, surely—he reached up to his head, but there was no blood, no pain. No bandages either. 

_Curiouser and curiouser,_ he told himself with a slight smile. Putting his hands in the pockets of his pants, he examined the room a bit more closely. When he peeked inside the wardrobe he found more clothes, neatly folded; all the same. White t-shirts and grey pants; two grey hooded sweatshirts. Appropriate sportswear of good quality and perfect size. There was even underwear in a drawer, standard-issue black boxers. 

He found socks and tennis shoes, which he put on because being barefoot made him feel vulnerable. After a moment he also put on a sweatshirt and zipped it up, rolling the sleeves up to his elbows. 

At a lack for anything else to do, he sat on the bed and started setting up an intricate web of silver chains, a system of complex awareness that would serve as a proximity alarm. Any person who knew little of Charles’ childhood would think such precautions bordering on paranoia, but Charles had shared lodgings with the Markos. 

Paranoia was only so until someone was actually _after_ you. 

So Charles had learned to keep himself safe, and the first rule of defense is to be prepared. 

As a child, whimsical in his vast imagination, he had fashioned himself a familiar. Perhaps unfortunately, at the time he had been quite taken with Sherlock Holmes, and _The Hound of The Baskervilles_ had made rather an impression. As a result, whenever he imagined a way to defend himself, in his mind he formed large nets of silver spider-webs, and set a guard behind them—a large black wolf, eyes red as fresh blood, prowling eager for violence. 

The thing about the wolf—which he childishly called Baskerville, because _well_ —was that it was more aggressive than Charles thought he might ever feel inclined to be. It had been Baskerville, after all, who had nearly torn apart Cain’s mind. Once upon a time, in another life, in another country, Charles had been horrified at what his own mind was capable of. 

But he hadn’t seen Baskerville since he had been injected with the drugs after his arrest, and to have the wolf at his side once again was akin to taking a breath after being submerged in murky water. Baskerville was his guardian and his weapon; with him at his side, his time in prison would have been quite different indeed. 

The wolf was nosing the door, restless. Charles wondered over to it, because there was really nothing else to do but indulge in idle activity, and tested the doorknob. 

It gave and the door opened. The hairs along Baskervilles’ spine stood erect, and then the wolf was outside, in the corridor, sniffing, hunting. Charles followed, amazed and surprised, looking around. Thanks to what he had done earlier he had a rather blurry, but accurate enough map of the facility. Certainly enough to get him to the front door, where, unrestrained, he could let himself out without trouble. 

“Hm,” he hummed, suspicious, and his telepathy sent out a wide pulse of reconnaissance—locating guards and sentinels, possible pockets of hostile activity, and turning them away. He pulled the silver nets from their perches on the hallways and turned them into snakes, fine little slithering things that he sent away like look-outs. They would find the guards and control them. 

Baskerville approved, loping exuberantly down the corridor, following Charles’ mental map and guiding him without effort. 

Charles was mystified. 

He didn’t understand how this was so easy. Quite clearly he was in a training facility, a compound, _spies and assassins_ , walls impregnated with secrets and violence. How come his door was unlocked, his corridor unguarded, his telepathy unrestrained?

Ah. Baskerville was at his side immediately, hackles rising. 

“Yes, a trap, surely,” Charles said absently. _Best be careful, then._

He found the snakes and made them burrow deeper inside the minds of their hosts, careful to do no harm, and extract only relevant information. They told him to turn away from the front door and find instead the small, unguarded one in the basement where the training equipments was kept. From there, a hidden exit, a tunnel into an abandoned house, and freedom. 

_Too easy, isn’t it?_ He mused, frowning. 

Unexpectedly, one of the snakes told Charles that someone was approaching his door. He took a quick, cursory look—tall, lean, long-limbed, movements economical and efficient in the ways only the men of the military can confidently manage. Sharp features, bone close beneath the skin, but handsomely arranged, and a mind like a maze of metal walls. Well-shielded; clearly trained in rejecting telepathy. 

“Running late, my lad,” Charles said, and rolled his shoulders to relax the muscles there. Baskerville’s eyes glittered. 

“Well, if there’s only one front door and only one back door, and both the front and back door are traps,” Charles told the wolf, grinning. “We shall have to exit through a window.” 

The metal-minded man was intrigued, but not alarmed. Another clue, then, that they had expected him to leave. There was something of a hint of pleasure there, and Charles thought _Oh how lovely, he’s proud of me._

Charles ducked into a side corridor and picked up his pace to a trot, aware now that while curious and far from angered, the metal-minded man was clearly in pursuit. It was impossible to tell what his gift was, his mind was so well shielded, but it was evident he was a mutant. 

Charles did not feel threatened and was uncertain as to what was happening exactly. Running seemed like the way to go, but he didn’t know what he was attempting to escape, or where he would go should he manage to succeed. Most unpleasantly, he had the sensation that everything was scripted and predictable, and he was being tested. Why else allow him to run free in such a gross way?

They _expected_ him to try and run away. Through this exercise undoubtedly they hoped to glean inkling on the way Charles thought and processed situations, and how he reacted to hostile environments. 

Charles had never had much patience for theatrics. 

He recalled the snakes, re-shaped the nets and took the long way back to his room, avoiding the metal-minded man quite pointedly. Baskerville was out for blood, but Charles knew better; he knew that the less information you gave someone about yourself, the safer you were. 

Why play their game? Charles was no one’s pawn. He wouldn’t become a willing player in their chess-board. 

So it was that, an hour and a half later, the metal-minded man found him in his room, quietly stretched out on his bed with his fingers laced on his stomach. Charles let Baskerville linger, because the wolf scented hostility better than he did consciously. Hostility could be hidden from telepathy; it was not a conscious decision, but rather a visceral inclination. Baskerville was a creature of instinct. 

“You made me waste rather a good part of my afternoon, Xavier.” 

“I apologize,” Charles said, getting to his feet. The man was quite a bit taller than him, broad-shouldered and hard. He was used to looming and being intimidating. “I imagined since you were trying to make a point, I might as well deliver one of my own.” 

The man gave him a grin like a scalpel. “That you won’t play by our rules, I gather.” 

“That I won’t play at all,” Charles corrected.

“So,” the man said conversationally, pulling the chair and sitting on it, crossing his long legs with unexpected elegance. “I take it you know where you are, then.” 

“A lot of assuming has been done thus far,” Charles said mildly. “Perhaps you ought to simply tell me.”

“You can’t learn it on your own?” the man asked, tapping his finger on his temple. 

“I could,” Charles conceded. “But I might as well pin you down and rape you.”

The man stilled, and there was a pause. 

“You’re not like your file suggests,” the man said at length. 

“I’m rather sorry you’ve studied it so carefully, then,” Charles smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning forward. “You’ve not introduced yourself.” 

“Erik Lehnsherr,” the man said. “I’m your handler.” 

“Handler,” Charles repeated, and Baskerville nearly tore a hole through Lehnsherr’s psyche. 

Lehnsherr nodded. “I know you know what this is, Xavier, so don’t make me waste my time explaining it. You’ve been recruited to Section Eight, and I’m your handler, and eventually I expect you’ll be a moderately useful spy for us. If I can get you in shape.” 

“Recruiting would imply the ability to decline,” Charles pointed out. “Removing me from the legal system, faking my death and forcing a car crash are not acceptable methods of recruiting.” 

Lehnsherr grimaced, “The car crash was a consequence of a slight miscalculation. It wasn’t supposed to happen.” 

“I am comforted,” Charles said flatly. “What about the marshals?”

“Alive and well,” Lehnsherr shrugged. “Not that anybody cares.”

“I happen to care,” Charles protested. “This is me caring. I ask because I care. You can tell the difference between what I care and what I don’t by my not asking questions about who you are and what you think you can accomplish with me. Irrelevant, as I won’t do as you tell me.”

Lehnsherr’s slate-blue eyes narrowed. 

“You think you’re going to be a handful,” he said idly. “But your telepathy doesn’t work on me, and I’m stronger than you physically, so.” 

“So, what precisely? You’ll force me to do as you want?” Charles shook his head. “I know this is foolish before I ask it, but do you really think you can get away with this? What’s keeping me from destroying your mind, controlling all the others in this compound and escaping into the shadows?”

“Our in-house telepath, for one,” Lehnsherr replied. “Much more powerful than you. Then there’s the fact that you’re a good man, Xavier. You won’t hurt me unless I absolutely force your hand, and I’m not stupid enough to do that. Men like you need to be shoved to violence.”

“As opposed to men like you, to whom violence is the first response?” Charles tilted his head. “I’m not afraid of you, Lehnsherr. You’re painting yourself like an average bully, and I’m not a helpless child any longer.”

The man smiled, but there was no humor in it. His eyes gleamed. “I _like_ you, Xavier.”

A single, slithering though escaped the metal fortress of his mind: _You’ll be fun to break_. This thought did not amuse Charles, and it certainly didn’t endear Lehnsherr to Baskerville. 

“Anyway, you’d escape and go where?” Lehnsherr gestured with a hand. “You’re a convict, Xavier.”

Charles grinned, “Wrong, Lehnsherr. I’m a dead man. I don’t exist. I’m as free as a newborn. I have you to thank for that.” 

Lensherr shrugged, though his mind was whirring, like cogs and pulleys, a perfect machine. Clearly he hadn’t expected Charles to be this difficult. Charles understood suddenly that it took most people a while to arrive at this conclusion and fight the situation. He was throwing the man for a loop. Just as well. 

“Then why not do as we suggest?” Lehnsherr asked. “You’ve got no better offers, and no worse. Clean slate. I know you think lowly of what we do, but we do good here. We protect the country. We stop terrorists. We save people.”

“I’m not a teenager to be sold a brochure, my friend,” Charles sighed. “You’ll not convince me with pretty words and eloquent phrases. What’s beneath your sweet words is that you own me because you took me out of prison and gave me the freedom of death. What you offer me, the indebted servitude you sell, is really not better than my cell—although I suppose the change of outfit is an upgrade.”

“You don’t lose anything, and at least here you’re a part of something bigger. You can do something worthwhile.”

It seemed odd to Charles that someone with _cynic_ and _lack of faith_ painted in wide stripes across his mind, as was Lehnsherr’s case, would go for this sort of argument. Clearly, this was as rehearsed a speech as everything else. _Do something. Be great. Become someone._ If only Charles was the little boy he had once been. If only he believed all he needed to survive was faith. 

“This country’s not done much for me, I’m afraid.”

Lehnsherr stood, “Just think about it. You’re free to come and go on the compound, do as you please, so long as you don’t leave. I _will_ stop you from leaving.” 

He went to the door, but paused with his hand on the doorknob, turning to look at Charles speculatively. 

“Did you do it?”

Charles arched his brows. 

“Marko. Did you kill him?” 

The telepath laced his fingers, smiling. “The natural thing would be to tell you I didn’t. But the truth of it is you won’t believe me, no matter what evidence I offer. I don’t think you believing I lie to you and me believing you don’t trust me is a promising start to this partnership.” 

Lehnsherr nodded. 

“Like I said, think about it. We can use someone like you, Xavier. After all,” he smiled wryly. “You’re free to become anything right now. Tyler Durden might be proud of you yet.” 

On that note, Lehnsherr left, leaving the door wide open.


	3. Chapter 3

“Did you, then?” Lehnsherr asked the next morning over breakfast. Breakfast, actually, was rather a kind term for it. It involved awful tea and toasts that swung between burnt and not ready, but they didn’t meet at the middle. Just the extremes. 

Lehnsherr seemed to survive on coffee and ibuprofen which was, to put it mildly, worrisome. 

“Did I what?”

“Kill Marko.” 

“Haven’t we agreed it doesn’t matter?”

“No, I didn’t agree to that.”

Charles glanced up at him, mentally smoothing down the ruffled hairs along Baskervilles’ spine. The guardian seemed alarmingly eager to tear Lehnsherr to shreds. Charles was unsure as to whether this was his subconscious being overly-protective, or his perfectly conscious dislike of the man. 

“I don’t understand why you give a damn. Or,” he paused. “actually, I suppose I do. You think if I were a murderer, it would be easier to understand me, don’t you? Similar minds and suchlike.” 

“I think that saying goes ‘great minds’.” 

“I’ve no proof your mind is great,” Charles replied, casually impolite because he felt he could be excused from manners, given the circumstances. Then he felt terrible about it, damn his upbringing, and backpedalled. “My apologies, Lehnsherr. There’s no reason not to be civil.” 

Lehnsherr looked like he could crop up a list of those, but he titled his head instead, dismissing the concern. 

“In any case,” Charles took a sip of the horrible, horrible tea. “You’re not wrong by principle. You are wrong because I am the exception and not the rule. Even if I _were_ a murderer, we would not think alike. The minds of telepath are rather far removed from the norm.”

“You know a lot of telepaths?”

“A few.” 

“But none as powerful as you,” Lehnsherr guessed. But his eyes were narrowed and Charles could tell he was fishing. 

“And how powerful is that, Lehnsherr?” he asked, arching his eyebrows. 

“You tell me.”

“You’re the ones that recruited me,” Charles replied. “Surely you saw something of interest in me.” 

Lehnsherr sat back on his chair and studied Charles, face unreadable, mind a maze of cold metal. But there was something else; something like a light, almost-there layer of half-melted ice. It didn’t belong in Lehnsherr’s mind. It sat wrong in corners and the edges of walls. Artificial. 

“We need a spy, and telepaths make great spies. You’ve got talent, potential. If you let us train you—“

“Like a lapdog?” Charles interrupted, almost deafened by the volume of Baskerville’s snarl. 

Lehnsherr sneered, “You have a problem with authority, Xavier.”

“Not with the ones I recognize.”

“Am I going to have to hurt you to get you to respect me?” It’s a serious question, in a matter-of-fact, straightforward tone. Not a threat. A distinct possibility that Lehnsherr with embrace, if pushed. 

Baskerville was very nearly out of control with aggression, radiating _just try it, go on, see what it gets you._

“I can tell you from experience that won’t work.” 

There was a moment of silence. Lehnsherr, quite unfortunately, was not a stupid man. 

“So you _did_ kill him, then. Marko.” 

“It sounds like you don’t need an answer; you’ve figured it out yourself.” 

Perhaps wisely, Lehnsherr decided it was time to let that subject rest. He would return to it, Charles knew; Lehnsherr was surprisingly single-minded, and he felt like this was information he most certainly needed to have. It was as those he could catalogue the world in halves by whether people had or had not committed murder. It felt, also, like he was more comfortable with the latter half.

Charles was marginally grateful for Lehnsherr’s ability to shield himself. His own hostility towards the man, embraced entirely too easily by nearly constantly-growling Baskerville, was not permeating into the man’s psyche and damaging it. 

There were several dangers to being a powerful telepath. Bleed-over of feelings was merely one of the least hard to spot. It would not be the first time someone developed deep self-esteem issues out of living too close and too long with a Charles that intensely disliked them. 

There would have been many ways to atone for this grievous mistake, but Charles had seriously hated that man and he was a geneticist, not a saint. At least Gerald would do the world some good by contributing to the ongoing studies of the psychological field. Also, by not having children, probably. 

Lehnsherr put his mug down on the table and straightened in his chair. 

“You’re meant to be a spy,” he said. “Telepaths of any worth are hard to come by, and they make the best spies. My mission is to teach you to protect yourself until your partner can get you out of danger and bring you back to base.”

“Why not teach me to protect myself and bring myself back to base? I didn’t like babysitters when I was a boy, I certainly don’t appreciate them now.” 

“Because you don’t need to. We work in pairs, with partners. No one’s ever completely alone.” 

“I disagree philosophically,” Charles said idly, simply because being idle seemed the best way to irritate Lehnsherr quickly. “Although, to be fair, I’ve never been quite alone in my head until they started giving me suppression drugs. So perhaps I have it all wrong.”

Lehnsherr studied him quietly for a moment. 

“Do you enjoy alienating people in general, or just me in particular?” 

Once upon a time, Charles had actually been extremely sociable and nice. Well, to everyone except Gerald, obviously. Those times, however, had been left behind. 

“In general,” he admitted. “Although you’ll excuse me if I find some particular enjoyment in doing it to you. You are so very driven to get me to trust you and rely on you. It’s endearing. Like the Hamelin Flutist was endearing, right before he drove the children off the cliff.” 

“It amazes me you’ve lived this long,” Lehnsherr commented, getting to his feet and gesturing for Charles to follow his lead. Charles did, mostly out of anything else to do, and they started walking down the hall towards what Charles knew was the training area. Baskerville wedged himself between the two of them though he lacked the physical space. The benefits of being a mental projection were many. 

“We work in pairs, with partners, to make sure no one gets left without backup. I intend to help you defend yourself, but you’re a spy, not a warrior. You’ll have a partner that will do the fighting for you. A combat specialist.” 

“Assuming I decide to stay,” Charles said, because he hadn’t decided yet. “How do you match partners?” 

“There are a lot of considerations. But don’t concern yourself with that now; you’re far from being ready to be assigned one.” 

“So the first step in my militarization process,” Charles shrugged. “Is to teach me how to fight, I presume?” 

He presumed right. It wasn’t pleasant. 

It wasn’t that Lehnsherr was a sadist, though it was clear he was not above causing pain and injury. It was that he had the training and discipline of a military man, and Charles had led the life of a professor of genetics until such a time he was thrown in prison, where his exercising regime had been, to put it mildly, laughable. 

Lehnsherr was all lines of skin against hard flat muscle stretched taught over long elegant bones. In a perfectly objective point of view, he was a remarkably beautiful human being. Charles liked beauty and knew how to appreciate it; he could spot beauty in men even if he was not attracted to them. He understood Lehnsherr considered his body a tool and a weapon, and not something to feel vain over. 

Charles’ body was different. He’d always thought of it as a jar, a vessel for his telepathy, which was his main avenue of communication and defense. He kept fit because he was vain, which he was not above admitting, and he kept only as fit as necessary to look good. He’d never needed to defend himself—not since he was a child, and most of that was done with his mind and clever hiding spots. 

And Lehnsherr was _brutal_. 

He shoved, tackled, pulled, pushed, tripped. He made Charles fall to his knees though attacking his hands, his feet, his stomach, his shoulders and, one memorable time unlikely to repeat itself, his temples. 

He had it right in the sense that they were a telepath’s most sensitive spot. He had it wrong in the sense that they were not the most _vulnerable_ one. 

Charles had a split second of white noise and red-hot pain, agony, absolute void of feeling or perception but that of pain, in the sense that pain was everything—and snapped back to himself just in time to keep Baskerville from slicing Lehnsherr’s consciousness to bits. 

It took a long time for Lehnsherr’s nose to stop hemorrhaging. 

“My apologies,” Charles said eventually, vague, half focusing on keeping Baskerville’s increasingly disturbing hostility under check. “I had no idea that could happen.”

“No one’s ever hurt you bad, have they?” Lehnsherr asked, genuinely curious, as he lit a cigarette and put it between his blood-stained lips. The metal zippo lighter sparked and floated on its own. 

“They have,” Charles corrected, eyes vacant. “But I never…” he trailed off, frowning slightly. 

“You never thought you could get away with hurting them,” Lehnsherr finished for him, undisturbed. “Whereas me you can hurt as bad as you like. You won’t kill me, because I can shield that much, and because our telepath protects me. But you can hurt me. And you think I deserve it, don’t you.” 

“I don’t… I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve done, or how you’ve come to be this way,” Charles said, looking blankly to the front. “But your mind is very disagreeable. Oddly malformed. You are angry nearly all the time, did you know?”

Lehnsherr snorted through nostrils caked with dried blood, blowing smoke through his lips. 

Charles blinked, “There is a division, in the human mind, between reason and instinct. In a telepath, where the brain functions to levels much higher than the average individual, this division can either be extremely marked, or completely dissolved.”

“And in yours, it’s the first case, huh?”

“On the contrary, Lehnsherr,” Charles replied, glancing at Baskerville as the hound sniffed interestedly at the cloth soaked in Lehnsherr’s blood. “My rational and instinctual sides are in complete harmony. So much so, in fact, that I can think very clearly, simultaneously, in their parallel parameters.”

Charles shifted his hand and snapped his fingers. Baskerville rose his immense head, slackened his jaw to let his tongue loll out like a puppy. 

“So what does your mind tell you about me?” Lehnsherr asked, trying to make sense of all of this. He sounded calm, but Charles could feel his disquiet, his uneasiness. The man was unused to dealing with someone like Charles. Lehnsherr was, after all, a military man; and military men dislike wild cards by principle. 

There was also Charles’ straightforward, nearly brutal honesty. Lehnsherr liked that about him, Charles could tell, because he felt he could allow to show himself precisely as he was. No sugar-coating, no tip-toeing around Charles’ sensibilities. 

“Rationally, I know you’ll keep me safe because you need me. Instinctually, however,” Charles watched as Baskerville touched his cold nose to the spot right under Lehnsherr’s nose. The man twitched, swiping at it absently. “Instinctually, my mind thinks I ought to get as far away from you as humanly possible, or at least hurt you enough that you’ll know better than to hurt me.” 

“If we start off by hurting each other, this is going to be a long, tedious training stage.” 

Charles closed his eyes and called Baskerville to his side. The hound curled protectively around him, tail deliberately tickling the small sliver of exposed skin between the hem of Lehnsherr’s shirt and his trousers. The man twitched again, and swiped at the skin distractedly. 

_Enough of that_ , Charles thought, sending a tendril of thought skimming the top of the hounds’ head in a gentle caress. 

“The truth,” Charles said, looking up. “Is that I don’t know how to survive out there on my own right now. I am a dead man; I need a new name and new documentation to give me life. I don’t know where to get those, or how. And I don’t [precisely have extensive experience evading the law.”

“You don’t think telling me this is handing me over your weakness?” 

“It’s pointless to hide from you something you already know perfectly well,” Charles replied. “I lived an easy life. I never had a need to learnt o be tough. I can keep myself safe,” he added, stroking Baskerville’s forehead. “But I don’t know how to keep myself hidden without my telepathy, and it can’t be my only tool.”

Lehnsherr studied him. 

“So you’re considering your options.” 

“I’d like to offer a compromise,” Charles said at length. “You need me for something. I can tell your goal is pin-pointed and that your time table is limited. You need my cooperation—and I need your expertise and your knowledge of how to live outside the scope of the law.”

He turned to the man, eyes calm and cold. 

“I’ll do this one mission for you,” he offered. “I’ll stick to your time table, follow your directions, and be compliant with your demands. In return, you’ll teach me everything I need to survive out there on my own. And that will be it. After your mission is complete I am free to go. You will not seek me out, hunt me down, or attempt to kill me to preserve your secret. I can tell that’s a viable option for you. Please don’t think of killing me. It makes me irritable.” 

“You’re not the average genetics professor,” Lehnsherr arched a brow. “You don’t behave a mildly as an academic. But you weren’t in prison long enough for it to change you to this extent. Have you always been this verbally violent?” 

“Did you know I spent a year and a half in a mental ward, diagnosed with acute schizophrenia?” 

Lehnsherr looked confused. “That wasn’t in your file.”

“No, of course it wasn’t, not with how much money I paid to make sure of that. Being a telepath has its risks; I have eidetic memory, for instance. Which means that I remember every memory, ever thought, every string of rationalization and mental pattern I have ever come in contact with.”

He tapped his temple and looked at Lehnsherr with ice-blue, half-lidded eyes. 

“So to answer your question,” he murmured, and felt Baskerville’s breath hot and humid on his ear as he glared at Lehnsherr over his shoulder. “Sometimes I’m mild and polite. And sometimes I’ve led a life of murder and mayhem. I suppose it all depends on what mood I wake up in the morning.” 

“You’re a psychopath,” Lehnsherr breathed, eyes going wide. 

“No,” Charles smiled beautifully. “I’m _technically_ mentally sane. I’m often a sociopath. But I do have the occasionally psychopathic outburst.”

“How are you not on medication for this?” the man asked incredulously. 

“Psychoactive drugs on a telepath are not advisable.”

“Only of the telepath is a five out of ten in the psi scale,” Lehnsherr retorted. “You’re listed as a three.”

“Am I?” Charles blinked. “How curious.” 

Lehnsherr was growing pale. “You’ve bribed and cheated your way out of a lot of things, haven’t you?” 

“Well,” Charles shrugged. “Money can’t buy everything. That’s what telepathy is for. Now, do we have an accord?” 

Lehnsherr was clearly considering his options. He hadn’t considered Charles to be a risk up to this point, but it seemed it was dawning on him that he could be seriously dangerous, if pushed, and he had no notion of how far he could push. Finding the limits would require much more care and precision than he had previously expected. 

Baskerville enjoyed the way Lehnsherr’s mind whirred anxiously. Evidently the man had expected to have to tolerate a worthless, weak academic, and had instead found himself sidled with _this_. 

“Very well,” Lehnsherr said slowly, narrowing his eyes as Charles. “We have an accord. You do _precisely_ what I tell you, you finish this mission, and then you’re free. I’ll teach you everything you need to know while we train.”

There was a pause. 

Charles observed with some measure of satisfaction that Lehnsherr hadn’t foolishly demanded he abstained from keeping secrets from him. Getting a telepath to be completely frank was next to impossible, and it didn’t even need to be one as contrary as Charles. 

“You’re not who you’re supposed to be, you know.” 

Charles smiled, remembered his father leaning over him with a needle in his hand and _Just breathe through the pain, son, it’ll be over in a minute. What author am I thinking on now?_

“No one is who they’re supposed to be, Lehnsherr. We’re all just lesser version of what we hope for.”


	4. Chapter 4

Charles woke up with a soft intake of breath, strikingly lucid in the darkness of his room, a whole two seconds before Lehnsherr knocked on his door to wake him up. 

Baskerville was curled up protectively at the foot of his bed, hind legs hanging off the side. 

“I’ll be up in a moment,” Charles called, sitting up in bed and running his fingers through his hair. Lehnsherr made a grumbling sound of acknowledgement and left down the hall towards the cafeteria. 

“I think a different approach is in order, old boy,” Charles told Baskerville, absently reaching over to tug on the hound’s closest ear. “We need Lehnsherr, so if you could kindly refrain from ripping him to shreds, I would certainly appreciate it.” 

Baskerville whined, ears flopping down against his skull. 

“None of that, my darling,” Charles said quietly. “Don’t be whimsical. We’re too old for that. You know we need Lehnsherr, so. No more of that urge to destroy him at every turn, hm?” 

The hound didn’t seem pleased, but he reluctantly lowered his heavy head to his paws, folding to Charles’ will. The wild side of Charles’ telepathy might be dangerous, but it was thankfully very much under the control of his rational thinking. This was something Charles was very strict about; Baskerville had free rein almost always, but he obeyed when called to do so. 

The hound prowled ahead of him, scouting the corridors, as Charles made his way to the cafeteria. 

“I can’t live like this,” he announced when he was standing next to the table Lehnsherr was sitting at. “If I’m expected to survive your horrendous training, I need better tea.” 

Lehnsherr looked blank. “We haven’t even started training yet, princess.” 

Charles frowned, looking over Lehnsherr’s breakfast; a half-empty mug of black coffee and a closed bottle of ibuprofen. 

“Do you have an injury that requires constant pain medication?” 

“Now we care, do we?”

“I wouldn’t say I _care_. I’m curious, however.”

“You’re such a sweet person, I’m touched.” 

“I’m made of sugar and melt in the rain. Injury, yes or no?” 

“No to the injury. I have a chronic headache.” 

“Chronic headache?” Charles frowned. “What’s the cause? Is it neurological? You should probably get that looked at. If you have chronic cranial neuralgias, the chances of a stroke raise every day you don’t get treated.” 

Lehnsherr stared at him. 

“I can see how you don’t care.” 

Charles sighed, “I’m not a horrible person all of the time. I’m just saying if there’s a way to prevent or stop the pain without you living off a bottle of pills, I recommend you grasp at it.” 

Lehnsherr narrowed his eyes cunningly. “You’re not comfortable with drugs, are you?” 

_Two syringes, son. This one’s for your head. If you behave, I’ll give you the one for the pain._

Baskerville pushed his head against Charles’ thigh, ears flattening down against his skull and tail swishing. 

“They are bad for… your stomach,” Charles said vaguely. 

Lehnsherr stared at him. 

“So, training?” Charles smiled. 

The man shook his head, finished his mug in one gulp and rose to his feet. As he slipped the bottle of painkillers into his pocket, Baskerville sniffed at it. Charles’ sense of smell was amongst his less developed, but his telepathy gave him information he wouldn’t otherwise have available. Buildings had memories; as did objects, if people carried them with them long enough. Lehnsherr carried the little bottle with him everywhere.

The bottle was labeled Ibuprofen. The pills were not. 

Baskerville, who had by some miracle managed not to give into the urge to dismember Lehnsherr even once in the last fifteen minutes, went right back to sullen and distrustful, and put himself between the two of them. Charles sighed. 

Lehnsherr spoke of endurance like it was something Charles had never even heard of in his life. He therefore felt the need to do everything in his power to improve whatever abilities Charles had which, physically speaking, were admittedly meager. 

“You’ve got a good body type for a fighter,” Lehnsherr said once they had both warmed up by running more laps around the gym that Charles had even cared to count. If the man wanted Charles to feel like he was in hell, he certainly was proficient at it. “A little soft around the edges, but good solid bone structure. I can probably work with that.”

“Your faith in me is nothing short of heart-warming.”

Lehnsherr ignored that with the practiced ease of a put-upon personal trainer. “Your file said you’re a talented pianist. Think about a sheet of music. You remember how the silences are as important as the notes, right?”

“Yes, of course.” 

“The same with fighting. It’s important that you know what your strong points are, but you also need to understand your weaknesses. Right now, your weaknesses are that you’re soft, slow, you have no knowledge or technique, and you’ve got a bad right knee and a weak right wrist. 

“Result of a long career in fencing, I’m afraid. A bit like a tennis player’s elbow.”

The man gave him a flat look, “That wasn’t on your file.” 

“Really? That’s just plain negligence. I have no reason to cover up that I indulged in a perfectly gentlemanly and elegant sport. Precisely what is in that file of yours?” Charles was genuinely curious, because the whole thing sounded appallingly poor researched. 

Displaying a truly admirable capacity to ignore annoyance, Lehnsherr moved on to basic combat training. Charles had had a very brief affair with wrestling in school, a sport he had very quickly turned away from because all of that skin contact played havoc with his telepathy, and the last thing he needed was to be broadcasting on all signals the unfocused aggression of a testosterone-filled teenage boy. 

“You ought to know,” Charles said, raising his hands to stop Lehnsherr momentarily. “When I’m on direct skin-to-skin contact my telepathy is often doing whatever it well pleases. It’s entirely possible it will single you out as a threat and bring you down before you can teach me anything.” 

“Can’t you just turn it off for the purposes of training?” Lehnsherr sounded exasperated. 

“It’s not like a light-switch, pet. I can’t just up and decide I trust you and we’re merry little friends. I try to get my instincts to circumvent the desire to hurt you, but,” he eyed Baskerville, ready to pounce at a fraction of a second’s notice, hackles raised entirely off wickedly curved fangs. “it’s not working.” 

“You treat your telepathy like it’s a different entity from you. I don’t understand,” Lehnsherr straightened. “My gift, it’s not like that. I don’t feel it that way. It’s a part of me, as natural as my lungs, runs with my blood on my veins.”

“Sometimes your mastery of English leaves something to be desired, my Germanic friend. Different entity? Quite. Schizophrenia, remember? For all I can control it, my telepathy is quite separate from me. It even has its very own temper, you ought to be warned, and it’s often not nice. You are German, aren’t you?”

Lehnsherr seemed to find so many things wrong in that whole speech that it took him a moment to finally settle for, “Polish.” 

“Oh, is that so? Poland is such a lovely country. Beautiful architecture. Also of notice is the fact that people don’t normally have last-names like Lehnsherr, of German origin, or first names like Erik, which isn’t even German, by the way. It’s of Norse origin, did you know? It means ‘eternal ruler’.”

“You don’t know when to stop talking, do you?” Lehnsherr asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly. 

Baskerville snorted derisively. The truth was the opposite; Charles knew perfectly well when to shut up, which didn’t necessarily mean he did it at the right time. Experience proved that the more you talked the less people listened; so if there was any note of truth to Charles’ annoying long tirades, and there usually was, very few people caught on to them. Charles talked; he said a diamond and three pieces of glass, and if he was careful, or conversely careless enough about it, no one saw the diamond, because they focused on the glass. 

There were a thousand ways he could answer Lehnsherr’s words, hundreds of lines piling together in the inside of his skull, so many answers, so many choices. All aggressive. Minds, even shielded, were ever so easy to raze, and _Just push a little more, pet, that’s it, right there, and a twist, son, that’s my boy._

He closed his eyes. 

“Just teach me to fight other people. I can fight myself on my own.”

It began again. Most of Charles’ time was spent falling, stumbling, being tripped, being pushed, shoved, pulled, hurt. Baskerville was a black mass of seething hate in a corner, tightly restrained and furious for it. Charles let Lehnsherr land more bruises on him in one day than he had in a year of his childhood. 

He had to admit the man was a work of art. Lehnsherr had exquisite control over every single muscle of his body that could be used for attack or defense. He was slick as he was elegant, violent as he was precise, fast as lightening, as easily grasped as smoke. A predator. And not a single moment of it was mindless; it was all calculated, to the very fraction of an inch. Where to land a punch, where to aim the kick, how to get Charles off balance. 

The one thing he never succeeded in doing was goading him. 

“Anger will help,” he said, circling the telepath as he moved, slinking like a jungle cat, every second active, never stopping. Charles wiped blood from his cut lip and stared at his long pianist’s fingers, trembling with exertion. He saw Lehnsherr move, tracked his mind, but the image was fractured, and in the fissures he saw lab tables and needles and white coats splattered with blood and remembered _Big boys don’t cry, son._

“My anger and yours aren’t similar,” he said faintly, knitting his mind back together into the present. Baskerville strained against his leashes, eager to be set free. 

“Anger is the same for everyone,” Lehnsherr countered, and appeared quite literally out of nowhere to twist Charles’ arm behind his back and bring him down to his knees with a gasp. 

Charles sighed, allowing his muscles to go limp in the man’s grasp. Struggle would only worsen the resulting injuries. 

“The nature of the emotion is the same,” he said, getting shakily to his feet when Lehnsherr released him. “Not so its manifestation.” 

“Alright,” Lehnsherr smiled, and finally, finally stopped moving. He stood in a wide fighter’s stance, feet wide apart and legs braced for impact, and loosened his shoulders with a shake. “Show me how your anger is so different from mine. Get angry. Give me a taste of it.” 

Charles fixed him with a flat-eyed stare. Lehnsherr held his gaze, as prepared as he thought he needed to be. 

Baskerville panted, smelling blood. 

Charles closed his eyes. 

“Your anger burns like a supernova a layer above all your thoughts, Lehnsherr. I don’t know what’s made you this way, and I am ever so sorry, for it must have happened in your most tender childhood. Whatever was done to you, however you were wronged, has made that emotion readily available to you as a weapon.”

He opened his eyes, raised his hand and snapped his fingers, and for a single moment, a fraction of a second splintered in a thousand slivers of sharp-edged glass, he allowed his mind to reach out, to expand, to breathe and pulse like the living, breathing entity it was, separate from Charles in all its glory and as much a part of him and yet as independent as his beating heart. 

Baskerville caught fire, flames so dark they fed on light, eyes like dying stars and fangs blinding white. For a second, less than that, Lehnsherr’s mind saw the hound and subsequently shut the knowledge down, unable to comprehend it. The man was left with an idea, a sensation, perhaps a shadow of a doubt of just how powerful Charles was; nothing concrete. His mind, non-telepathic, wasn’t prepared to understand completely what had just been done to him.

Charles snapped his fingers and pulled back, folded inside himself like the wings of a dragon, hid his power behind his eyes and sank it down into the center of his mind, wrapped by layers of silver spiderwebs. 

Charles was not a three out of then in the psi scale. Neither was he a five. 

Lehnsherr swayed on his feet. 

“My anger isn’t my weapon,” Charles smiled faintly. “It’s my demon. Do you understand?” 

“What manner of creature are you?” Lehnsherr answered, ashen-faced. 

“There are many schools of thought on the subject,” Charles sighed. He turned and watched Baskerville out of the corner of his eye. The hound was subdued, satisfied by the display of power that seemed to have put Lehnsherr on a quiet, cautious mood. “If you were to believe my father, I’m a God amongst insects. My step-father was of a different inclination, as you well know.”

“What was your graduation on the psi scale?” the man circled close, head tilted, warned but not cowed. He was alarmed, and no wonder, but was also apparently fascinated by the notion that he’d stumbled upon a creature with a bigger potential for destruction than himself. This, it appeared, was a good thing. 

Charles figured this was a good time to start worrying about his trainer’s mental health. The man was subjecting him to such intense scrutiny that even Baskerville was beginning to squirm. Charles knew from experience the best way to derail someone’s mind. 

By being a complete and utter asshole. He even threw in a smile: “Who is John Galt?”

Lehnsherr straightened. “This is one of the things you’re never going to tell me, is it? Like whether you did or not kill Marko.” 

“Like what your real name is, Mister _Erik Lehnsherr_ ,” Charles smiled like an open wound. 

He knew how unbearable it was for people to realize he was not an innocent. His blue eyes, pale skin and apple-red lips made everyone think he had had an easy life, and for a while there indeed he had. That spot of time between his father’s death and the coming of his step-father, and then when he’d been powerful enough to protect himself and get away. For a while, he’d almost, almost had happiness at the grasp of his fingertips. 

And then Marko goes and dies, and he goes to prison. There was quite possibly not a single thing Marko had done, in life or in death, that hadn’t fucked Charles up. 

“Trusting one another would be wise,” Lehnsherr said, eyeing him speculatively. 

“I never said I was wise,” Charles replied. “And you’ll kill me before you trust me.”

Lehnsherr wiped a big hand down his face. “Let’s move into weapons. You can probably handle yourself better with a blade.” 

“Hm,” Charles said, noncommittal, and followed Lehnsherr docilely to the corner of the gymnasium, where some fencing equipment was available. Baskerville kept pace with him, loping graceful like a wolf. 

_What a foolish mistake_ , Charles thought, brushing mental fingers over the hound’s rough hair. _To make such a display… yet the telepath wasn’t paying attention, I can tell. And he has no idea what I did to him._

“Foil, saber or sword?” Lehnsherr asked, arching his brows. 

Charles’ best and favorite weapon was the saber, so of course: “Sword, if you please.”

He took the proffered foil with a wry twist of the mouth, not nearly a smile, and thought idly of Rorschach: _You think I’m locked in here with you. But you’re wrong; you’re locked in here with me!_


	5. Chapter 5

A lot of things could be said of Erik Lehnsherr. 

That he was patient was not one of them. 

Charles’ nose was broken. Normally this would be impediment enough and a mentally whole trainer would consider ending the afternoon on that bloody note, but as noted beforehand Lehsnherr was not, indeed, whole of mind. 

“You’re bleeding on the mat.”

“Come closer. I’ll bleed on you instead.” 

Lehnsherr huffed. “You can do this, Xavier. Get on your feet.” 

Charles had a brief moment of rampant insanity in which he considered letting Baskerville loose on the asshole. Baskerville was, needless to say, eager. 

“It’s noon,” Charles said, dragging himself wearily to his feet because he was too proud to admit defeat by laying flat on the ground. He was not, however, above complaining. “We’ve been training for hours, Lehnsherr.”

“I see we’ve moved onto the whiny little bitch part of the morning. It’s good to know it only took you six hours to get there.” 

“It’s just I was under the impression you needed me _alive_.” 

Lehnsherr made a non-compromising sound, bent over and drove his very, very sharp shoulder squarely into Charles’ solar plexus. He went down like a sack of boulders. He did not get up again.   
Charles had learned the hard way that if you proved to someone that you could endure pain, it did not, as people seemed to believe, get them off your case. It only got them to try more painful things, pushing, prodding, stabbing—straining to find your pain threshold, the line in the sand beyond which Charles could no longer hold quiet, hold still, _be good, son, just one more time, just one more time, just one more time._

Lehnsherr wanted to know his limit. Why not give him a fake one?

“Physical exertion feels like freedom, doesn’t it?” Lehnsherr grinned above him. 

“You are quite, quite unbalanced,” Charles said flatly, closing his eyes and wiping cursorily at his nose. His pain receptors had collapsed on command, of course, so he wasn’t exactly in pain, but the sensation was unwelcome. It brought up some unpleasant memories. 

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Lehnsherr offered, dropping down to the mat at his side. In his corner crouched like a hungry wolf, Baskerville growled, hackles rising off his teeth. The virulence with which he hated Lehnsherr was quite astounding. 

“It’s broken. It’s been broken before, so I can tell.”

“Your stepfather?” Lehnsherr winced in sympathy. 

Charles gave him a flat stare. “I see we’ve move onto the condescending, understanding and friendly trainer part of the schedule. It’s good to know it only took you four days to get there.” 

Lehnsherr’s eyes glinted. 

“Your attitude doesn’t fit your lifestyle.” 

“My attitude fits my lifestyle perfectly,” Charles retorted. “What it doesn’t fit is your stereotype.” 

Lehnsherr sighed, leaning back on his outstretched arms. He let his head fall back, closing his eyes. Curiously, he was sometimes quite astoundingly beautiful and sometimes simply interesting to the eye. There was a sharpness to him that definitely caught Charles’ attention, like the honed blade of a well-balanced knife, but he thought perhaps Lehnsherr could make himself inconspicuous should he need to. Certainly his face would call for a double-take, but nobody would be crashing their cars for staring at him. 

“You’re not a spy yourself, are you?” Charles asked, curious. “You’d stand out too much, would you not?”

“I’m a combat specialist,” Lehnsherr agreed. “Back-up for the infiltrators.”

“How come you’re training the shiny new toy instead of out there fighting for freedom and love and whatnot?” 

“Are you trying to quote _Moulin Rouge_? I thought you had eidetic memory.” 

“It’s disturbing to me that you’ve watched that movie,” Charles commented. “And I’m quoting the French Revolution, actually.”

Lehnsherr smiled slightly. Charles became aware, rather abruptly, that Lehnsherr was beginning to cotton up to how he could bring Charles to trust him. Intimidation and threat would not to the trick. Charles was attracted to intelligence, eloquence and wit; while normally short of words, two of those things Lehnsherr had in spades, and the man was starting to realize it would be through those that he would bring Charles closer. And the closer he was, the easiest he could be handled.

Possibly, this was just Charles being paranoid. Then again, considering his biography, Charles felt paranoia was not only justified but, quite frankly, a necessity. 

“I’m not on field because my last mission went… wrong. The management thought some time off was in order. Additionally, as you know, the mission we need you for is of some delicacy. And I’ve been known to have the best results in the least amount of time before.” 

“Hm. How did your mission go wrong?” 

Lehnsherr frowned, “It’s a blur. My operative went… wide. I don’t know what happened.”

It was unlike the man to be uncertain about something, and this was clearly bothering him. Lehnsherr was the kind of man that liked to have his answers in neat little filing cabinets, pages upon pages of reports and explanations and analysis of the situations. It seemed unnatural that he would let such a matter rest without further pursue of an investigation. 

Charles had a vision of frost on metal and a bottle of Ibuprofen filled with powerful painkillers. 

Baskerville picked his head up from his front paws, ear twitching to the front. 

“When did your chronic headaches start?” he asked, seemingly idle. 

Lehnsherr glanced at him, “Right after. I was wounded on mission. A blow to the temple. I was unconscious for a while.”

Charles sat up, gesturing with his fingers for the man to turn his head. Somewhat amused, Lehnsherr complied, presenting his left temple to the telepath. Indeed, right there in the indentation of the skull where the temporal transitioned to the sphenoid—Lehnsherr did not have a sunken temple, his skull smoothed down quite gently to curiously expressive eyebrows—was the mark of a newly-healed scar. 

“You were lucky not to be killed,” Charles commented, studying the jagged line of new tissue with a practiced eye for scars. 

Interesting, though, that he failed to remember what had gone awry in the mission; he had a positively militarized mind, ordered and sharp. With the admirable shields up Charles couldn’t tell if that was a normal occurrence, but it didn’t fit what he’d seen of the man’s character so far. In his experience, soldiers or officers compartmentalized to laughable degrees, but rarely forgot important details. They were, after all, trained to be observant. 

“Perhaps there’s brain damage,” Charles suggested, releasing Lehnsherr’s jaw and pushing his own hair back off his face. “That would certainly explain the headaches.” 

“They’ve told me there isn’t.”

“What’s your circadian rhythm?”

Lehnsherr gave him a blank look. 

“I mean, are you a night or day person? Do you find yourself sleepy in the afternoons, do you get up smartly in the mornings?”

Mystified by the line of question but apparently not seeing any danger in it—pity the fool, clearly he didn’t know Charles well—Lehnsherr gamely thought about it. “I… yes, I get up smartly, as you said. I don’t get sleepy until I’m in bed, preparing to sleep. It’ a common military habit, as you know.”

Sleep only when sleep can be afforded. Indeed. 

“But you’d say you’re a morning person, hm?”

“Yes, probably.” 

“And the headaches are in the mornings, which is why you take painkillers at breakfast.” 

“I wake up with the headaches, yes,” the man looked at Charles curiously. “Why?”

“Sleeping minds are tricky things,” Charles answered, not answering at all. He smiled.

Lehnsherr seemed to have completely given up on trying to understand the swaying motions of Charles’ mind, and instead of insisting on an explanation he shrugged and stood, offering a hand up. Charles let himself be pulled to his feet, rubbing the back of his hand over his upper lip. 

“Let’s get your nose looked at,” Lehnsherr said, tilting Charles’ head up to take a closer look. He smirked, “Then we’ll move on to other things, since it seems like you can’t handle a lot of physical training in one go.” 

Charles batted the man’s hand off, rolling his eyes. It was rather frustrating for Charles to realize that he was covered in bruises and abrasions and Lehnsherr had only just broken a sweat. Lehnsherr insisted in building up stamina and teaching him to defend himself with bare hands, even though he’d been so impressed with Charles’ fencing the day before that the telepath had been amused. 

The compound did not have an infirmary. The compound had an in-house goddamn hospital, complete with operating theatre and physical therapy wards. 

“We probably can’t handle brain surgery,” Lehnsherr said as they stepped off the elevator into the blindingly white atmosphere of a state-of-the-art clinic. Charles glanced at his temple and thought _No, you probably can’t_. “But we’ve got nearly everything else covered.” 

Charles was led to a glass-walled fish tank of an office where he was introduced to the clinic’s Chief. Charles disliked a lot of things, and quite near the top of the list were doctors, hospitals, and medical exams. Baskerville prowled around, uneasy and restless, sniffing everything. He was so on edge Charles was beginning to get a headache. 

“I probably won’t die of this,” he told Lehnsherr as they waited for a doctor to swing around. “I think this is unnecessary.” 

“Probably isn’t really an acceptable diagnosis,” Lehnsherr replied, eyeing the ivory skeleton in the corner with some trepidation. “Why do you reckon doctors keep skeletons in their offices?”

“I reckon most don’t,” Charles observed. “But if pressed for an explanation, I’d go for intimidation, most likely.” 

Lehnsherr gave him an incredulous look. “Intimidation? Doctors are supposed to help people, not scare them.” 

“And everything in the world is precisely as it’s supposed to be, is it? Are you twelve?” 

“Thank you for the condescension, I appreciate it. A day is not complete if you don’t treat me like something stuck to the sole of your shoe.” 

“Aim high,” Charles smiled, more genuinely this time. 

Lehnsherr was getting his number. It was alarmingly quick, considering it normally took people years to understand how Charles’ mind worked: in mysterious, circuitous, and often callous and strange ways. 

In the end, a sleepy-looking older medic came by, checked Charles’ nose, and decreed it not broken. He recommended painkillers, which Charles vetoed, and icing for the swelling. It was for this reason, therefore, that Charles found himself an hour later in a conference room with an ice-pack covering a portion of his face and a bored-looking Lehnsherr flipping idly through a report. 

“I’m impressed by the innate efficiency and admirable professionalism of your people,” Charles said at length. “I must make note of copying your standards should I ever chose to open a secret government murdering agency. Perhaps I shall call it MI99.” 

“That’s very British of you,” Lehnsherr sighed, dropping the report. “Although that seems like a high number, if you ask me. Any significance?”

“There’s this drinking song that I absolutely loathe,” Charles waves a hand. “I admit myself to be currently underwhelmed.”

Lehnsherr rubbed his scarred temple, a gesture Charles had already noticed he did when he was feeling exasperated or tired. This was a common enough mannerism that in and of itself didn’t have any meaning, but—it was only that Lehnsherr was so naturally economic with his normal gestures. This one seemed oddly uncharacteristic. 

“He was supposed to be here half an hour ago. Stay here, I’ll go track him down.” 

“Hmn,” Charles emitted, slouching down on the chair to let the ice sit more comfortably against his nose. Lehnsherr glanced at him, grey-blue eyes the color of burnished steel, and left the room without another word. 

Curious. 

_Follow him, won’t you?_ Charles thought, and Baskerville rose to his paws and went through the door, latching onto Lehnsherr’s distinctive mind without so much a ripple of disturbance. Free of Charles’ physical presence, the man seemed more at ease; he relaxed visibly, and though his posture was still perfectly straight and elegant, he seemed… looser. 

_I make him uncomfortable_ , Charles thought, faintly amused. _Good to know._

Baskerville followed Lehnsherr down the hall, down two flights of stairs to an elevator with a security code—261947; unsurprisingly, Lehnsherr made no effort to conceal the code from sight of something that he didn’t know existed—down to a sub-level of maze-like corridors of metal and white. A high-tech research facility, by its looks and feel. Charles’ skin crawled. Why did everything always have to be white? 

Baskerville moved close to the wall, keeping pace behind the man, sniffing, looking, listening. He brushed his snout over a corner, and a tendril of though slithered into the metal—

Lehnsherr stopped so abruptly Baskerville went through his legs, turning around to stare at the metal Charles’ mind had just brushed. 

_Oh_ , Charles breathed. _You’re keen, old boy, very keen. I shall have to be more careful, won’t I?_

Baskerville recalled the tendril of thought and slid it instead into a section of the wall not covered in polished metal. The hound watched Lehnsherr blink, hesitate and finally shrug off the uncertainty. 

The man’s final destination was apparently some kind of workshop, with machines half-gutted and half-constructed lying in nearly all available surfaces and hanging off the ceiling. There was what seemed to be a plane, or a model of one at least, but it looked like someone had gotten bored halfway through its design and abandoned it. Something seems to have caught fire in a corner, and a robotic containment unit is attempting to fight it off. 

Lehnsherr dodged under the outstretched arm of what could only be described as a malformed Dahlek and strolled towards the fire. A man was standing at a safe distance, watching the robot try to contain the disaster with marginally acceptable success. 

“Should I be worried about this?” Lehnsherr asked, coming to stand next to the man. 

“The stuff around it is non-flammable if that’s what you mean,” the other replied. Baskerville got closer to get a better look; shorter than Lehnsherr, with muscle running to bulk, dark hair and light eyes, a strangely-shaped sharp goatee. “But I guess I can’t stop you from worrying anyway, can I? Although for the record, if you turn out to be the mother-hen kinda guy, I will be sorely disappointed.” 

“It would kill my reputation, I suppose. Have you seen Azazel? He was supposed to meet with me in the conference room five, half an hour ago.” 

“That’s odd, he’s never late, really weird. I’m glad you brought this concern to me. I’m currently busy torching things, but still, I’m happy to know.” 

“Thank you for the sarcasm. You don’t even look curious,” Lehnsherr noted. 

“I live in a constant state of awe and marvel, Lehnsherr, I don’t know what you’re implying but I don’t like it.” 

Lehnsherr seemed immune to this particular brand of madness. Charles was beginning to understand how the man could put up with him so well. Clearly he had experience with the disturbed. “So you haven’t seen him, then.” 

“I can vaguely describe him if pressed,” the man shrugged. “Probably.”

“Vaguely.”

“I’m not all that observant.” 

“Well, if you happen to see him and recognize him to be one of our people, remind him he just stood me and my new operative up.”

“Oh right, Frost’s new favorite toy, how’s he holding up?” 

_Well_ , Charles arched his brows, unimpressed. 

“He’s… a handful.” 

“Like me?” the man grinned impishly. 

“You weren’t a handful, Tony. You were a nightmare. Don’t set anything else on fire.”

Lehnsherr walked away. Baskerville remained, studying this Tony with some measure of interest. His face seemed familiar, but Charles couldn’t place it exactly. Strange, as his eidetic memory allowed him to immediately associate a face with a name. 

_Hm_ , Charles removed the ice from his face, shifted it a little and reapplied it. _Leave it. Go back to Lehnsherr._

But he didn’t have a chance to follow Baskerville’s path to the man, because the door to the conference room opened. Charles sat up, startled, and was greeted with the sight of a tall, stunningly beautiful woman. There was a lot of woman to look at, because there were very few items of clothing covering her. They were all blindingly white. 

_Leave nothing to the imagination, don’t you?_ Charles thought, dumbfounded. 

The woman smiled, _It sure distracts people, doesn’t it, sugar?_

Charles stood up, leaving the ice carefully on the table. Baskerville abandoned Lehnsherr entirely, returning to Charles’ side only to dematerialize as soon as he was in the room. Charles put a lock on him, sinking down the webs of his power until he looked like an innocuous, helpless third-level telepath. 

“Miss Frost, I presume?” he asked, unflinchingly polite.


	6. Chapter 6

“Erik tells me you’ve not been taking kindly to your accommodations,” Frost said politely as she sat, crossing her impressively long legs and looking like a queen. Charles, who’d met actual queens and their offspring, was not impressed. 

“The room is tolerable,” he said flatly. “It’s the situation I don’t take kindly to. But I’m sure Erik has already told you that we came to an agreement.”

“Ah, yes,” Frost looked at her perfectly manicured nails. It was a poorly conceived attempt at indifference. “But I already told him that little bargain of his is not exactly acceptable.”

Charles sat back slowly on his chair, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers. This was a different kind of game than the one he played with Lehnsherr, a game requiring less honesty and more shrewdness. Charles had a face for every person, and he slid into his personas as easily as water in a glass. 

The truth about who Charles Xavier was, at the core of it all, beneath hundreds of layers of deception and shields and illusions, was a mystery to everyone but Charles himself, and a few men now dead and buried. It was easier to slip into the prescribed attitudes of the stereotypes; the professor, the rich-boy, the playboy, the telepath, the Englishman. 

Funnily enough, those who Charles cared for the least got to see him at his most genuine; one such example was Erik Lehnsherr. It was easy to be himself when he didn’t care what anyone thought.

“I see,” he said, polite and distant, playing ice with ice. “You object, then, to my departure.” 

“Well, you understand. We invested rather a lot of time and effort into getting you here, honey. It won’t do to have it all go to waste.” 

“I didn’t ask for you help in the first place,” Charles pointed out. “Which means that, regardless of the current situation, any expenditure of time, effort or, doubtlessly, great amounts of money, in getting my person out of prison are your problem and your problem alone. I don’t owe you a debt for a favor I didn’t ask.” 

Frost tilted her head. 

“I don’t think you quite understand, Xavier.”

“Oh, as it happens, I understand perfectly well,” Charles replied, flawlessly well-bred. “It is simply I disagree with your notions of gratitude.”

“Not only gratitude, sweetie. You’re out of prison, but you didn’t serve your sentence, remember?” Frost smiled, and Charles felt a chill. “We got you out for a purpose, and you’re going to serve that purpose for as long as we want you to. Because we _own_ you, honey. We own you as well as if we’d bought you like the pathetic little waste of society you are. So why don’t you just give up on your little pretense of freedom, and play along, okay?” 

There was a long moment of silence. Frost continued to smile. In the depths of the abyss inside, under wraps and tightly held back, Baskerville flamed black as night. 

“I see,” Charles said quietly, expressionless. “So in your view it is my duty to serve out my sentence at your orders.”

“Seems only fair, doesn’t it, sugar?” 

“If you would dispense with the endearments, please,” Charles requested, civil to a fault. 

Frost smiled the smile of someone who’s getting what they want. “Sure, _Charles_. Can I call you Charles? Such a lovely name. Xavier is such a good strong last-name too, isn’t it? Too bad you sullied it by killing that little rat, Marko. But alas—good blood doesn’t always breed true.” 

Charles smiled blandly, “As you say.” 

The woman regarded him for a moment. “What mark were you on the psi-scale again, Charles?”

“A three,” Charles replied flatly.

Frost clicked her tongue, “I suspect you might have… curbed that a little. _Did_ you, Charles?”

“Erik talks a lot, does he?” Charles smiled gently. 

The woman laughed lightly, “Not at all. He never talks to me unless I force him. But he _is_ obligated to keep a record of your progress, and I _do_ have access to those.” 

_Ice on metal_ , thought Charles, staring back at her calmly. _And chronic headaches._

“He doesn’t like you much, hm? He is rather contrary.” 

Frost smiled, “I hope you’re not thinking you can make an asset out of Erik, dear. He’s a murderer, you know. Not to mention a soldier; he follows orders, and he follows _our_ orders.”

“I’m not going to start a war with you over some bloke,” Charles said, completely honest. “If you want him, go ahead and keep him. But for the record, he’s quite his own man.” 

“Non-telepaths are never their own,” Frost smiled, gliding elegantly to her feet. 

_That_ , thought Charles as the woman slipped out of the room. _Was a singularly blithe admittance of manipulation. I wonder what would happen if I told dearest Erik what’s she’s done to his mind._

More interestingly, though, Frost had no alluded to what _Charles_ had done to Erik’s mind. It wasn’t anything as crass and obvious as manipulation, of course; he’d just chipped the shield, allowed for a crack. Something that might allow for the unnatural ice to star draining away, gradually releasing the man’s mind. 

The mind was an exceptionally resilient thing; it would always inevitably attempt to return to its original correct form. Erik’s mind was malformed; and now Charles knew precisely why. He’d been maimed, somehow. He wondered what he would find if he penetrated deep beyond the shields, into the raw energy of the man’s mind. 

Not everyone merited a telepath of worth bending them out of shape, after all. 

Normally, Charles would only spare Erik’s inexplicably manipulated mind a stray thought, because someone else’s mind was really just none of his business. Unfortunately, Emma Frost had seriously pissed Charles off, and a pissed off Charles Xavier was just bad news all around. She had made it quite clear he was to keep his hands off the trainer, which, of course, only made Lehnsherr that much more interesting. 

In any case, if she really needed him to stay away from the man, why not simply switch his trainer? There were two answers to this question: either she didn’t think Charles had enough skill to break through the shielding in the man’s mind, or she was truly desperate to get Charles well trained in a short amount of time. 

Baskerville rematerialized at his side, once more a creature of black fur instead of flames, and settled his big head against Charles’ thigh. He stroked the hound’s forehead with his fingertips, slow and soothing. He reached blindly with his other hand, found the icepack and reapplied it to his nose, rolling his head back to star at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. 

_Indebted servitude,_ he thought uncharitably. _I survived my father and stepfather to end up a psychotic’s bitch plaything? I do not think so._

All it took for him to win the game was to understand the rules—once he understood them, he could disregard them, bend them, break them. 

This was how, ten minutes later, Lehnsherr found him. His eyes lingered on Charles, taking in the relaxed posture. 

“Well,” he said at last, sitting opposite Charles in the chair Frost had vacated. “I wanted our expert to brief us on the advantages of picking the right playfield and using the terrain to your advantage, but he seems to have gone temporarily missing.” 

“I can see that the concern is tearing you up.” 

Lehnsherr shrugged, “Azazel can take care of himself. Most likely he’s on a mission and he didn’t cancel on me.”

“You can’t teach me this yourself?”

“Not as well as he can,” Lehnsherr admitted. “But well enough, I suppose. In any case, it’s time for lunch.” 

“Hm.” 

For a compound filled nearly to the brim, Charles had run into a surprisingly small amount of people. This was, of course, not counting the guards. Charles didn’t count them except to make brief mental notes for Baskerville to take them out whenever they needed them to be gone. Just as soon as Charles’ patience run out. 

Charles had noticed, though, that what little people and guards (he put them in separate categories) he _had_ run into seemed to respect Lehnsherr in a similar fashion to the respect one holds for a snake. You admire it, and you keep well away from it. 

This time, however, the mess hall was noisy and full of—Lehnsherr had called them operatives. The variety of the mutations as was considerable as it was fascinating, and it was gloriously, unflinchingly in display. 

Charles loved it. 

“You’re staring,” Lehnsherr smirked as they joined the mess line. It all seemed to strangely high-school, at the moment. The tables and the groups and huddles of people and the noise and cheeriness, this didn’t feel like an undercover spying government agency. Then again—Charles noticed a lot of the _operatives_ were actually quite young. 

Young and impressionable. Hm. 

“Of course I’m staring,” Charles said pensively. Then, to distract Lehnsherr, he added, loftily, “It’s my right to stare, you can’t do anything about it. You’ll never take me alive.”

It was nonsense, and he was only half-aware of what he was saying, but Lehnsherr cracked a wide smile, the first sincere one Charles had seen. It smoothed his features, made his face look less like a conglomerate of blades. Lehnsherr was unexpectedly handsome when he smiled. His blue-green eyes seemed to be made of iridescent crystals. 

“You must have been a riot in your lectures,” the man said, nodding cursorily as someone murmured a polite greeting at him. 

“No one ever complained.”

“And I suppose if they had, you would have dealt with it expediently?”

Charles gave him a flat look, “No. Unlike some of us, whose name I shall fail to mention, I do indeed care for free will.” 

Lehnsherr looked genuinely puzzled. “I didn’t force you into anything, Xavier. You made your choice.”

Charles thought of ice on metal. Baskerville pressed close against his leg, sniffing at Lehnsherr’s left forearm. The man twitched it away, scratching at it absently. _No_ , Charles thought, soothing Baskerville with a stroke of his mind, _Frost is not looking through his eyes. I would be able to tell, if she were. She is as tactless as she is unsubtle._

“Why don’t we move onto first names?” Charles asked, blinking. “Your name is really long and cumbersome.” 

Erik arched his brows, but once again, played along. Evidently this Tony guy had trained him well in the ways of the intermittently insane. 

Lunch was a quiet affair, if only because most of the operatives on site seemed eager to give Erik a wide berth. It wasn’t that the man was a pariah, exactly. Pariahs are despised, treated with contempt. Erik was instead simply given space, as if standing too close to him might result in cuts, like when one passes a thumb over a too-sharp blade. 

Charles did become aware, rather puzzlingly, that Erik’s demeanor was noticeably different when he was addressing Charles himself. Since it was obviously too early for Erik to have begun to like Charles, the only explanation was that Erik knew the way to get Charles to cooperate was to get Charles to like him. Spy or not, Erik had a way of seeing what he needed to do to get people to follow him. 

It wasn’t natural leadership skills, though; he was a taciturn, distant man with almost everyone, and no one in their sane mind would develop loyalty for someone who didn’t spare them a second glance.

“I imagine you know this,” Charles said conversationally as they sat. “But your precious telepath paid me a visit while you were gone in search of your missing operative.” 

Erik’s eyes snapped up, narrowing. No love lost at all, then. 

“What did she want?” 

Baskerville picked his head up, ear twitching. _That couldn’t possibly be protectiveness, could it?_ Charles wondered, puzzled. _It’s too early for him to feel that and I’ve made it clear I hardly need it._

It was probably just hostility towards Frost, then. 

“Oh, the usual. Threats, condescension, she insulted me a little, and then she warned me to stay away from you as if I wanted to get you on your back. I hope I’m not getting tangled in some lover’s spat. I hate those. Very tedious.” 

“I wouldn’t touch her if mankind was going extinct,” Lehnsherr said, startlingly honest. Baskerville snorted, amused. 

“That’s a strong feeling,” Charles pointed out mildly. “One might say she’s quite lovely. Apart from being a heinous bitch. But then, to each its own, no?” 

“She’s an unfortunate necessity,” Erik said under his breath, spearing a tomato with undeserved viciousness. 

“Telepaths normally arouse those kinds of feelings of distrust on the non-psi-active. She’s the one that shielded your mind, was she not?” 

“You’re not like her,” Erik replied, out of the blue. Charles blinked. Baskerville tilted his head, blinking. 

“I agree. Not everyone can pull off that bra.” 

Erik made an impatient gesture with his hand. 

“I mean you don’t waste time hiding yourself.”

“Says who?” Charles asked skeptically. “For all you know I could be plotting your bloody demise as I sit here having lunch with you, quite civilized.”

Actually, for once, Baskerville didn’t seem interested in biting off a chunk of Erik’s mind and having it for a snack. This was interesting. 

“Oh, yes,” Erik replied, flat-toned. “I can appreciate how well you’re hiding yourself from me. You’ve been nothing short of polite, charming, delightful and mild-mannered. I’m buying your game, alright.” 

“That’s only because I don’t care what you think of me as a person,” the telepath admitted, eyeing Baskerville as the hound stood and padded over to Erik. He sniffed at the man’s throat, where his scent was more pronounced, and then nosed at the scarred temple. Erik reached over and scratched it. 

It occurred to Charles that Erik, about as psi-active as your average rock, should not be aware of Baskerville’s quirks. 

The hound recoiled. 

“I gathered as much when you told me you’re mad,” Erik nodded. 

“Actually I recall mentioning I’m technically mentally sane.” 

“Only because they couldn’t make anything stick.” 

“As a matter of fact they could,” Charles said breezily. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have had the need to bribe and manipulate them, would I?” 

“Do you have no moral standards?” 

Charles grinned, reckless and wanting for blood. “No. Those are developed in childhood by the grinding yoke of civilized society, and I was too busy being experimented on and abused to pay attention, you understand.” 

Now, here was proof of Erik’s temper. His eyes widened, lips pressing into a thin line. But he did not pale, did not flinch, did not recoil. 

“Don’t tell me,” Charles continued breezily. “It wasn’t on my file.” 

“It said you’d gone through extensive trauma at an early age. But the nature of it was unknown.”

“Of course. The scientists that worked on me didn’t share their project with anyone and when they were both dead I personally made sure to burn everything down.” 

“Was it Marko?” Erik asked suspiciously. 

Charles exhaled.

“You’re so fixated on that—you think if I tell you what he did to me you’ll be able to figure out whether I killed him or not? It won’t bloody matter either way.”

“Well, if he went about torturing children, no wonder he got himself sliced to bits.” 

Charles waved a hand. “Do you think me capable of dismembering someone, Erik?”

Erik gave him a stony look. “I have no idea what you’re capable of.” 

Charles grinned. “Well,” he said cheerfully. “Now we understand each other, I believe. _Scio me nihil scire or scio me nescire._ I only know that I know nothing.” 

Erik drew a tired hand down his face. “Plato. Wonderful. Philosophy. Just what I need at lunch.” 

“Don’t let it unsettle your stomach,” Charles smiled. “Or else I will know precisely how to torture you.” 

“Seems to me you need little help figuring that out. Are you done? I’d like to make sure you won’t shoot yourself in the foot if I ever give you a handgun. Or are you going to tell me you’re a state champion, but it’s not in your file?” 

“I could,” Charles said, insolent and untruthful. “Only I’d have trouble proving it to you.” 

“Another one of your lies, then.” 

“My dear, everything is lies and nothing is true,” Charles said as he rose from the table. “The sooner you accept that, the sooner we’ll be friends.” 

“You must have spent a long damned time constructing this persona of yours,” Erik pointed out, sinking his hands into his pockets as they walked companionably side by side.

“Me? Persona? I’m sure I’ve no idea what you are referring to. I am perfectly genuine at all times.” 

Erik chose not to take that bait, and Charles could tell his mind hwas going back over what they had talked about before. Erik was still trying to figure out what he was dealing with when it came to Charles; unable to categorize him or put him firmly in one of his thought-lockers, the man was forced to scramble for understanding. His mind was as walled-off as ever, the edges of the tall walls sharp like scalpels, but the fractures Charles had made on the shielding were beginning to show, and he could sense something. Erik was turning something over and over in his thoughts, stubborn and fixed. 

Charles sighed, “It was a long time ago, you know.” He said, almost gently. “Scars or no, there’s really nothing you can do about it now. I don’t like, or for that matter require or deserve, your pity.” 

The man winced. “Not pity. It’s simply that it’s a wicked thing, to torture a child, especially for the sake of scientific advancement.” 

“Hm. Well, it is not as though you can be unfamiliar with the concept; I have seen you shirtless.” 

Erik shrugged. Ha glanced down at his left forearm, rubbed his shirt absently over the skin where the serial number had been inked. 

It was something that utterly confounded Charles; for Erik was too young to have been a survivor of the Holocaust, and no-one with half a finger of forehead with get such a tattoo willingly.

Could it perhaps be a reminder of his family’s origins? Erik did come from a Polish family, he had said. Possibly one of his grandfathers or great-grandfathers had been in the camps. Yet it seemed to Charles that to get such a tattoo was a hideous thing, rather than a way to honor his family. In any case, Erik did not seem the type for such sentimentalities.

It was strange. It didn’t fit. Especially when that was the only tattoo the man had at all. 

Erik was still thinking deeply. There was something itching at the forefront of his mind, something that made Baskerville’s ears prickle up, eyes keen, nose twitching. This something, this little tendril of thought, like the trembling nose of a newborn pup, sought out to connect with Baskerville as if the hound was its parent. 

_No_ , Charles said, turning Baskerville away and neglecting the thought. _Leave it alone._

Now was not the time to begin to unravel the frankly impressive mess that was Erik Lehnsherr’s mind. It wasn’t as though Charles was currently free of trouble and flooded with free time. Understanding people was not black and white, it required time and effort and dedication, and all of those things were precisely also what Charles needed to get himself out of this pickle. 

If it was down to choosing between Erik and freedom, he’d let the man burn a thousand times over, until his bones were nothing but ashy marks on the ground. 

Yet—

Yet. 

The indisputable fact was he can use this. Lehnsherr was the key to something, Charles didn’t know what, but something, something _important_. He was at the core of it. Frost was keeping him on a tight leash, sunk deep under the ocean covered in ice. 

In Charles’ experience, when someone took such great pains to keep someone under control, it meant that removing the chains that person became the very embodiment of chaos.

And Charles—well, Charles _delighted_ in chaos.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little short, I know. But this is actually the last chapter and now we're caught up with LJ! I just checked. So next chapter is an actual all-new update.

Erik paused. 

“I have a feeling you’re not listening to what I’m saying.” 

Charles turned away from the window, blinking. “I’m giving you a fraction of my attention. A small and unimportant part of my brain is filing this information for later, I assure you.” 

The man sighed, putting the knife down. 

“You need to know this, Charles.”

The telepath pushed his hair back off his forehead, exhaling. “Erik, I’m a telepath. I’m one meter and sixty centimeters tall, and I weigh seventy-one kilos. There is absolutely no way I can outmatch an experienced knife-fighter in an engagement and we both know it. I know you’ve been watching me move and I gather you’ve realized I’m no good ad hand-to-hand—so why insist on this?” 

“What if your telepathy is disabled?” Erik asked intensely. 

Charles’ eye shifted to Baskerville, lying on his side against the wall by the door, dozing. The hound’s ears perked up, the great head lifting so that the banked fire of his coal-red eyes was visible. 

There had been only one time in his life that Charles had been completely bereft of his telepathy, and he’d experienced a cardio-respiratory crash in the laboratory table. The incident had prompted his father to make a notation in the file: _if the telepathy is completely nullified, the subject dies._

Subject. 

“Aren’t you going to be there to protect me?” Charles asked, blinking slowly and trying to dispel the smells of disinfectant and drugs from his memories. 

“And I’ll do everything I can to do so, but you’ll agree I’m not invincible, Charles. You need to be able to take care of yourself.” 

Erik was so earnest that Charles was startled, snapping his gaze up at the man. There was something strange moving in Erik’s eyes, like a sea-serpent trapped under ice. 

It was clear to anyone with two fingers of forehead that Erik had a truckload of trauma to attend to, and hadn’t yet quite found the opportunity or inclination to do so. Based on that knowledge it didn’t take much effort to realize Erik was desperate to protect his new operative—especially considering the last one had ‘gone wide’, whatever the hell that meant. 

On the one hand, this was good because Erik looked like he could hold his own and Charles’, easily, and Charles wouldn’t say no to someone taking an interest in him being returned home safe and with all his limbs. 

Of course, the flipside to that coin was that Erik was paying attention to him, which was… unfortunate. 

Charles crossed his legs. 

“I have my own methods of protection,” he said lightly, as Baskerville’s eyes glowed. 

“There are ways to stop a telepath.”

The geneticist rubbed his fingers over his brow, heaving a sigh. 

“Perhaps if we just admit that throwing knives aren’t my thing. I’m sure you have other weapons you can suggest for me, Erik. My natural method of defense is indeed very personal; maybe a more impersonal secondary weapon is in order.”

“Can you handle a gun at all?”

Charles shrugged, “I know how they work in theory.”

Erik considered this for a moment; his mind was racing, working out possibilities and chances and figuring out what his best course of action was. He could certainly choose to press the issue; despite Charles’ natural recalcitrance, he’d not yet spoken firmly against any of Erik’s training decisions, for the moment relying in his greater experience. It was unlikely Charles would refuse to continue the knife-throwing training—but they’d been at it for nearly three hours and his aim had scarcely improved. 

Finally the man got to his feet and gesture for Charles to follow him. 

The fire-range was underground, most likely to keep the compound as conspicuous as could be managed given the circumstances. Charles knew the layout of the place, knew all of the compound’s secret little nooks and corners; but he let Erik guide, allowing him to think his sense of orientation was poor. Charles liked to be underestimated. 

It was, of course, packed with people using different sorts of weapons. Erik made a beeline for the great open-sided office at the end of the huge room, where a tall, coarse-looking man was sitting on a chair with dust-covered leather boots crossed on top of the desk, smoking a foul-smelling cigar. 

Behind him, the walls were covered floor to ceiling with guns of any and all sorts, locked behind metal curtains. 

“Wolverine,” Erik greeted flatly. 

“Magneto,” the man returned, equally as flat. No love lost, evidently. 

“I’d like a nine-millimeter hand-gun and ten clips of ammunition.”

Wolverine did not move an inch, staring at Erik indolently as he inhaled thick smoke and let it trail from his nostrils like a large, fur-covered dragon. “What, no ‘please’? Where’re your manners?”

Erik looked decidedly put-upon, but he had a grip on his temper; in any case, it was clear enough Wolverine was trying to get a rise out of him. There was no point in giving the man what he wanted, even Charles could see that. Wolverine was spoiling for a fight. Charles allowed his telepathy to brush up against the man’s mind, but he quickly drew back; he was snarling mass of aggression and anger, held only loosely by the restraints of a psyche in which reason fought constantly with animalistic intent, and did not always win the battle. 

“Please,” Erik added finally, sounding bored with life. But his shoulders were tense, back stiff. He was not as far from an outburst as Charles had initially believed. Now that he thought about it, Charles realized Erik was looking the worse for wear; tired and thin: thinner, doubtlessly, than when Charles had first met him. Hardly two weeks had passed since Charles had arrived; if the weight loss was that noticeable, then it had to be significant.

Wolverine grinned, “Nah.”

Baskerville’s ears lay flat against his skull, hackles rising. Charles frowned, irritated, on the one side by the hound’s clear defense of Erik, and on the other by Wolverine’s transparent but nonetheless successful taunts. No small measure of his annoyance was born out of Erik’s inability to see through it. He’d thought the man more clear-headed, cool-tempered. But such did not seem to be the case. 

Erik’s jaw worked. The metal curtains behind Wolverine rippled like the water of a pond, hit by a stone. Wolverine scrambled swiftly to his feet, eyes glinting, almost feral. 

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Charles interrupted, slapping a hand noisily against the counter, investing the gesture with hidden authority. Baskerville’s fur along the line of his spine was standing on end. “Enough with the testosterone fest, if you please. Erik’s spent the better part of three hours trying to get me to hit the broad side of a barn with a knife, an endeavor in which he has sorely failed, and it’s in my best interests to develop some proficiency with a gun. If you two care to continue on your pissing contest, then by all means feel free to do so, but at the very least have the decency to give me a gun and send me on my way first.” 

Erik glared, clearly irritated by the rebuke, but Wolverine blew smoke in Charles’ face, unrepentant. Erik grew so stiff you could probably use him to demolish a wall. His spine was so straight a ruler would be put to shame. 

Deliberately slowly, Charles reached forward, stole the cigar from Wolverine’s lips, and inhaled a long, acrid cloud of smoke. He hadn’t smoked in years, but some abilities are never lost. He blew a cloud of smoke, shockingly compact and thick, and directly sucked it back into his mouth, inhaling it again to release it, this time finally, through his nostrils. 

Wolverine and Erik stared at him, astonished.

Charles wetted his mouth with saliva, deftly turned the cigar around, and put it out against his tongue. Then he spat it out on the desk, looking bored and unamused. 

“Are we done here?”

Wolverine cleared his throat, blinked, and offered Charles a large, hairy-backed hand. Charles could argue he despised touching strangers, but he could tell Wolverine was the kind of man that thought you could know something about a man by shaking his hand. Charles knew this to be folly; all you had to do was squeeze someone’s hand like you knew they expected or hoped you would, and then serve the lie up in a silver platter. 

Fooling people was so _easy._

So he shook the man’s hand, and gave him a dry, cool, firm but somewhat weak handshake. By the shifts of Wolverine’s eyes and the curl of his lips, Charles could tell he’d hit the nail right in the head. He’d given Wolverine what he’d expected. Just as well. 

“Nine millimeter, and magazines, please,” Erik said, eyeing Charles speculatively. 

“What?” Charles asked defensively as Wolverine moved to get them. 

“You’re too clever by half.” 

“That’s sharp of you,” Charles widened his eyes, mock-shocked. 

“I’m just glad we’re on the same side,” Erik smiled. 

Charles struggled between the effort to maintain a friendly façade that would keep Erik on his side, and the irresistible pull of honesty and the risks therein contained. In the end, as usual, insanity won out. 

“Thinking we’re on the same side will only make it more painful when I inevitably stab you in the back.” 

But Erik grinned—a smile so big it ate up half his face, and showed too many teeth, and had points sharp enough to pierce through steel. 

“A true friend stabs you in the chest, Charles.” 

“I feel like we don’t communicate at all, sometimes,” Charles sighed, ignoring Baskerville’s snort of amusement. 

Erik laughed, and hooking a finger on the belt-loops of Charles’ jeans, pulled him over to a stall at the end of the great basement, far away from any other operatives at practice. Charles distractedly sent Baskerville out into reconnaissance of the other operatives, sniffing around, testing their minds for shielding and vulnerabilities. 

Attention thus compromised, he missed Erik’s movements and flinched when the gun was pushed against his palm, metal cold and heavy. 

Erik gave him a weary look, “You’re scared of it.” 

“Oh,” Charles blinked, gripping the gun correctly and taking it entirely from Erik’s fingers. “No, I’m sorry. I was distracted.” 

The man arched a disapproving eyebrow. “Don’t be. You’re handling a fire gun.” 

“My apologies.” 

But Erik was not satisfied; nor was he, until Charles was completely familiarized with the gun, and how it was constructed, and how he could disassemble it to clean it or check for catching mechanisms. And he would not advance in his lesson until he was certain that Charles could arm and disarm the weapon on his own, efficiently and expediently, repeatedly, without making any sorts of mistakes. Only then did he consent to teach him to load it, and unlock it, and shoot it. And by the end of the lesson, it having spanned over the best part of another four hours, he hadn’t even taught Charles to aim; but the telepath was as comfortable with the surprisingly heavy semi-automatic as he was with Baskerville. 

“I’ll teach you to aim tomorrow,” Erik said as he placed the gun and the empty magazines on the desk for Wolverine. “I’m more concerned about you not being afraid of it. You don’t use a weapon you’re scared of, or you use it poorly.”

Charles eyed Baskerville and knew Erik didn’t know half the truths of the world. But the man meant well enough; he genuinely cared whether Charles shot himself in the foot, and well. Charles had to admit the concern for his well-being was novel. Nobody had given a damn whether he was breathing since his mother had died. 

That went a long way towards explaining why Baskerville was warming up to the man. Charles knew his own worst weakness was affection; it was a weapon he was ill-prepared against, having experienced it so very little, and he knew himself to be vulnerable to overtures of friendship and fondness. 

The worst part of it was that Erik wasn’t even faking it, he could tell. The stupid man genuinely cared. 

Charles didn’t understand the existence of creatures like Erik Lehnsherr. Charles was a snake, and he’d told him he would bite and poison him—and yet here stood the fool, his hand light on the small of Charles’ back, urging him towards the stairs to the mess. 

It looked like Charles wasn’t the one in danger of soothing himself in the foot, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

“This is outrageous! Why do you have a tub?” 

“Because I’ve been here for six years,” Erik replied blandly, glancing up from the files in his desk. 

Erik’s room wasn’t a room—it was a bloody apartment. Complete with bathroom with a _tub_. 

“I am deeply, greatly insulted,” Charles said, turning around with a frown. “I am nearly your age and yet I have the sterilized equivalent of a _dorm room_!”

“I’m seven years older than you, you’re nowhere near my age. And you should count yourself lucky to have your own room at all; most agents share.” 

“That’s a moot point,” Charles muttered, striding to the window—Erik had a bloody window—and snatching the curtains back. Oh. It overlooked the training courtyard. Disappointed, Charles flicked the curtains back in place. “As you know perfectly well un-dampened telepaths can’t share rooms.” 

“You must be a fascinating bedmate.” 

“No one’s ever complained,” Charles wandered over to Erik’s desk, his tone lofty. 

Erik arched an eyebrow, “Did you convince them you’re a sex god?”

“They needed no convincing. Six years, you said?” 

This time Erik did not bother to look up from his papers. “Yes; it’s all in my personal file, which I distinctly remember leaving on the desk in your room, for you to read at your leisure.”

“I haven’t _had_ any leisure, because you are a slave driver,” Charles said, very pointedly. “Now—six years. You are thirty-two; so you came to be here at twenty-six—“

“You can count. I’m so proud of you.”

Baskerville, lying as long as he could stretch upon Erik’s blue-covered bed, snorted in amusement. Traitor. 

“Which means your military career, however stellar, can’t have been very long at all. Why did you decide to come to the hush-hush part of the military?” 

Erik glanced up briefly, as if considering something to say—and abruptly, like lightning striking, all of his shields slammed up, walling his mind off like a vault. Baskerville materialized next to Charles just as the telepath’s mind locked down, layers of reinforcements wrapping around his innermost self like snakes coiling about a pray. 

Charles was conscious of one thing: he’d just been _attacked_. 

_Miss Frost_ , he thought, icily, sending a shard of pain through his mirrored shields—to hurt but not _be_ hurt. He felt her recoil, startled and stunned, shocked at his control—and at his boldness. 

Charles was aware of one other thing: he’d just blown his cover as a third-level telepath. A third-level wouldn’t be able to put up such shields—let alone send out a lance of pain. 

_Oh, bloody hell_ , thought Charles, and then, very distinctly, _fuck you_. 

Baskerville’s eyes glinted like chips of ruby. Tightly restrained, holding back ninety percent of his power, Charles surged forward against his shields and _pushed_ at the growing pressure of Frost’s mind, like fingers of ice trying to find purchase and attack. He imagined his mind to be a round, smooth, mirrored dome—impenetrable and slippery, impossible to fracture. 

Suddenly, Baskerville’s head snapped to the side. Distracted, Charles glanced down; Erik’s nose was bleeding. 

“Good God,” he said, appalled, and moved abruptly forwards to tilt the man’s head up and pinch his nose. Erik was completely unresponsive. Whatever Frost was doing to him was evidently taking up most of his conscious functions. Baskerville gave a quiet sort of whimpering cry, not nearly a bark, pained. 

“Oh, for the love of—“ Charles said, exasperated, and swiftly slipped under metal shielding to reach the inner core of Erik’s mind, efficiently sliding his mirrored dome over it. He couldn’t protect the man from the surface assault—not without blowing his cover, and he didn’t need Erik that much—but he could make sure his personality core and basic memories would be untouched. 

It took only a glance, though, to realize he was quite late. There were large blackouts in the vast canvas of the man’s memories, like holes in the pavement of the street. Entire sections of recollection missing. Baskerville whined. 

“And why should _you_ care?” Charles demanded, arching a brow. 

Abruptly, Frost withdrew. Charles immediately smoothed down a layer of shields, and felt the snag of her ice as she looked in, careless of permission. He threw up confusion and surprise, and even a little bit of fear. Let her think he had no idea what had just happened. 

He looked down at Erik’s vacant eyes. 

“Well,” he said quietly, checking to make sure the nosebleed has stopped. “Now we know for certain where those headaches come from, don’t we.” 

Erik blinked, eyes suddenly bright with intelligence again. Charles looked at him, doubtful, but withdrew his hand. The man straightened, wiping his upper lip with distaste. Blood had run down to his lips, and then down his cheeks to the angle of his sharp jaw when Charles had tipped his head back. 

“I apologize,” he said low, standing to go to the bathroom. “That happens sometimes.” 

Charles was freshly sickened. The damn woman was liquefying his _brain_. Baskerville sat down, looking distinctly unhappy. 

“Neurological damage is now certainly out of the question,” Charles said conversationally, striding into the bathroom with no respect for personal space—it was cramped—and sitting on the edge of the tub. “You might be dying, even.”

“Your concern is heartbreaking,” Erik mumbled, splashing water over his bloodstained face. 

Charles eased himself back into the empty tub, crossing his knees to let his feet dangle over the edge. It wasn’t that big; two people would hardly fit. Still, it beat Charles tub-less little cubicle of a bathroom. 

He watched as Erik washed his face, tracking the shifting muscles beneath the thin fabric of his t-shirt, the way they sloped gracefully from the long curve of his back to the column of his long neck. Charles liked and appreciated beautiful things, even if he did normally prefer a woman’s soft curves to a man’s hard angles. If he had been so inclined, though, one had to admit Erik was quite exquisite. 

Baskerville came into the bathroom, sniffing around, curiously poking his snout closer to Erik’s hands. 

The man reached for a hand towel and dried his face, turning around to arch an amused eyebrow at Charles’ position. 

“You hair’s growing floppy,” he said, apropos of nothing. 

Charles arched his eyebrows and looked up; he could just barely catch sight of his bangs, dark brown and unruly. 

“All the better to grab onto,” he said, cheeky. 

“By an assassin,” Erik pointed out, balling the towel and throwing it in the laundry hamper. 

“Or by a lover,” Charles grinned, mock-seductively, turning his head to give Erik a look out of the corner of his eye. “Not that there are much prospects of such a thing in this place,” he added wistfully, after a moment. “Most of my fellow agents are much younger.” 

“I’m sure you can survive without sex for a few months.” 

“You’ve obviously never met me,” Charles muttered. “Oh, you missed a spot,” he added, pointing at Erik’s jaw angle, where a drop of blood remained. 

Startlingly, Erik bent closer and docilely put the spot within Charles’ reach. Hesitating briefly, Charles gamely reached out and rubbed his knuckle on the spot, cleaning it. Baskerville’s ears were very straight, eyes very bright. He was paying close attention, and he felt just as well as Charles did when their skin came in contact. Erik’s mind did something strange—not unbecoming, exactly, but not something Charles would have anticipated. 

_Touch starvation_ , Charles thought, not for the first time. He couldn’t help but think that, in different circumstances, Erik would be a lovely man—beautiful of course, but also with an attractively intelligent mind and a willing disposition to touch and be touched. It was rare he got angry, and rarer still he held onto that fit of temper. 

Yet he kept himself so tightly held back that Charles had to wonder: was the restraint self imposed, or ordered besides? 

“Hm,” Charles withdrew his hand, crossing his arms. “What is your earliest memory?” 

Erik frowned at him, confused. “Are you going to psychoanalyze me now, is that it?” 

“Only if you want me to give you more traumas. Just answer the question.”

“Only if you answer one in return,” Erik said shrewdly. “Did you kill Marko?” 

Charles scoffed. “That’s not an equivalent question. Ask something else.” 

Erik seemed honestly stunned that Charles was willing to play the game at all. His face took on a thoughtful look as he lowered himself to the tub edge, at the far side of Charles’ legs. He pushed back a damp strand of hair that had stuck to his wide forehead, stalling. Baskerville sat down and lowered himself to the ground, laying his great head on his front paws. 

“Alright. What is _your_ earliest memory?” 

Charles hummed quietly. “That’s a convoluted question for someone with eidetic memory. I suppose—the first thing I remember, chronologically, was my mother’s hair brushing against my cheeks when she bent down to kiss me. I must have been, hm, about one year old? I think so. She always put vanilla scent in her hair; to this day I relate vanilla to her.” 

It was an innocuous enough memory; affectionate and old, and nothing Erik could really learn from it. 

Erik nodded pensively. “My first memory is of my father. He was a clock-maker. He sat me in his lap and showed me all the pieces of a clock, and named them one by one, and showed me how to assemble them.”

“What year were you born in?” Charles asked casually. 

Now that he was looking for it, Charles saw it. The question fell, as he had suspected, into one of the many voids in Erik’s battered memory—but as soon as the blackness surged forward, an answer presented itself, the connection forced, the edges of question and answered non-matching. Artificial; an implanted memory. 

“Nineteen-eighty,” Erik answered, lying without knowing. “You could get that from my file, if you ever cared to—“

“I’ve got you right here! Why would I waste time reading your biography?” Although actually—come to think of it, that file might prove interesting. At least three fourths of the information there contained had to be lies, but you couldn’t built a convincing lie without using the truth as a base. 

Charles considered asking about the numbers tattooed on Erik’s skin—but he remembered distinctly the shade of his skin, pale under the tan, streaked with blood-red. Not again. Not today anyway. 

The telepath offered a hand, “Get me out of here.”

Erik heaved a long-suffering sigh and did so, pulling Charles easily out of the tub, muscles flexing along the length of his arm. Charles allowed himself to brush against the man’s chest, noting the way Erik failed to push away, and moved past to the living room. Erik’s bed was made—undoubtedly to military standards—with a dark blue cover. The small apartment was Spartan to the point of being nearly monastic. 

“I think we need a stiff drink,” Charles announced, pushing back his hair, which had indeed grown almost floppy. 

“I’m on medication,” Erik reminded him. 

_For all the good it’ll do you_ , Charles thought darkly. “Very well. I’ll drink and you’ll eat.” 

“This a military training compound. You’ll be hard pressed to find alcohol here.”

“Everything’s pallid with you, isn’t it?” Charles rolled his eyes. “You’ve got a ten-level clearance. Get me to a bar.” 

“So I can pay for your drinks?” Erik arched a brow. “I don’t know why I think you have expensive tastes.” 

“Not at all. The only things I’m really particular about are my clothes and my sexual partners. The rest I can do with cheap—though of course when given the choice I won’t.” 

Erik sat down to his desk again, picking up his pen. “Could you go torture someone else for a couple of hours? I’ve got paperwork.”

“Half of those reports are about me; I’m not going anywhere.” 

Erik gifted him a mocking smile. “You’re not the center of my Universe. Or my only operative. Most of these are about the people I’ve already trained, whom you’ve never even heard about. Besides, it’s dinner time. Run along.” 

Charles exhaled an offended scoff and, after giving Erik the British version of the finger, scurried out of the apartment. 

Baskerville remained, sitting silently at Erik’s side, inspecting the reports with keen eyes and a sharp mind. Erik was currently reading something about someone designing a fully combat-functional metal battle-suit complete with life support and outer space capabilities. There was a little note, made in smaller, sharper print, right in the margin of that paragraph, as if added to the file by someone other than the original writer: This is doubtful at best, speculation at worst. Have with a pinch of salt.

“One of these days, Tony,” Erik mutters under his breath, marking the paragraph up with a pen, possibly to remind himself to discuss it with his operative. 

_Tony Stark_ , thought Charles, striding slowly through the halls to the mess. _How in the world did you end up down here?_

 _Suppose there’s only one way to find out_ , he smiled to himself and took a quick turn to the right, following the route Erik himself had taken down the first time. He slipped, silent and invisible like air, between two watchful guards.


	9. Chapter 9

Finding his way down to the underground workshop was distastefully easy. Honestly, with the security in this place, Charles was highly surprised half the people here hadn’t been murdered in their sleep yet. 

Well, no reason to suggest an upgrade.

The workshop was crowded, cramped full of old projects, some half-finished, mostly looking as if they had been an ill-conceived idea to begin with, but their maker had only realized of that half-way through the process of creation, and simply discarded them like useless toys. Some were admittedly impressive: one in particular looked like a transportation vehicle in the shape of a large spider, legs wide and long enough to move comfortably around cars in the streets. Another one looked like a giant egg mounted on four octopus-like arms ending in wide wheels; some sort of car, with a seemingly fully articulated cockpit. Glossy and polished as it was, it was still spectacularly ugly. 

“Yeah, not my most inspired, I can admit that,” a voice said behind Charles. 

The telepath turned, hands in his pockets, the picture of innocuous. He’d felt the man’s mind—a disjointed, high-speed avenue of ideas, thoughts and impressions. Tony Stark’s mind seemed to work on several levels at once, organizing budding ideas as they came for later appraisal. 

“I’m confident you would have found a purpose for it eventually,” Charles offered politically. 

Tony’s lips twitched in a not-quite-smile. “They tell me one’s supposed to have the purpose first, and then the solution.” 

“I believe in being prepared,” Charles shrugged. 

“I like you, let’s be friends. Scotch?” 

“I could marry you for less,” the telepath said emphatically, following Tony to one of the wide workbenches. 

“Well, I’m also unbelievably intelligent and filthy rich, and I’ve been reliably told I’m really good in the sack. Not to mention my good looks.” 

“Humbleness is the weapon of the unoriginal,” Charles grinned, watching Tony fish a bottle of Glenfidditch from a drawer. “Ought you to be drinking while handling heavy machinery?” 

“What, that?” Tony gestured towards one of his Dahlek-like toys, mechanical arms stopped mid-motion. “That’s just this stupid thing. I have half a mind to donate it to a college to help clean up labs. Can’t aim for shit.” 

Charles thought the better of pointing out that Tony was responsible for the robot’s calibration, and simply sipped his whiskey. The robot’s arm moved up, jerky as if the metal parts stuck against each other. Tony scoffed and threw the bottle cap at him. 

Amused by his antics, Charles asked, “I think we needed that, my friend.” 

“We’ll just have to drink it all. Take a seat,” he glanced around quickly. “Uh, pull over that robot. It’s fine, don’t worry, it’s not doing anything better than letting you sit your ass on it right now.”

Inclining his head, Charles grabbed onto the little robot and sat on it as if it were a stool. 

“So what brings you down to my little patch of anarchy and chaos?” 

“I don’t suppose that saying I was simply taking a stroll would suffice?” 

“Stretching your legs? Breathing some air? One does not simply walk into, um, my workshop, which I can safely say, Sauron can die of envy.” 

“I think you could do with a Volcano. It would certainly play up the decoration.” 

Tony’s lips twitched into a smile, slightly manic, “I could do with a few Nazgul, I’ll tell you that—oh, great idea, I could design some—“and saying this bent over to a notepad and began furiously writing. 

Charles sipped his scotch, content and comfortable. He let Tony put down his brilliant, though possibly quite deranged idea, and smiled amiably when the man turned back to him, fingers stained ink-blue. 

“So,” he said. “What are you doing down here? And for that matter how did you get here at all? I’m pretty sure I’ve got security protocols around here. Jarvis!”

“Professor Xavier had all the entry codes, sir.” A robotic voice, flawlessly polite and distinctly British, informed. It sounded nearly bored. 

“You designed yourself an English butler?” Charles grinned. 

“But then it grew a character, and I don’t like him. Only I can’t just _reset_ him, that’d be murder. And infanticide, a little, I guess since he’s sort of my kid.” 

“I suppose,” Charles agreed. “Jarvis is right, I did have the entry codes. How come to acquire them is a matter best left for another occasion, if I may be so bold as to assume I’ll be returning.” 

“Yeah,” Tony shrugged. “I already gave you booze, I’m not ratting you out. Just don’t tell Erik, he gets really pissy about security breaches and he doesn’t like me being in contact with the newbies. He says I’m a bad influence.” 

Charles swallowed scotch, and said mildly, “I can’t imagine why.” 

“I can, sir,” Jarvis piped up. 

“Shut up and go run a scan of something,” Tony said dismissively. Then he turned a speculative eye on his guest, gaze sharp. “You wanted to talk to me.” 

Charles nodded slowly, eyeing the man. Tony Stark was a well-built, conventionally handsome man of thirty-eight years. He kept well in shape for his age, and could have no more than 5 percent body fat. His mind was an open book, a racing lightning storm of brilliant ideas and half-formed assessments. Charles could tell Tony thought he was interesting, knew he was powerful, recognized him to be beautiful; but not in the same way Charles himself could recognize beauty: like an abstract fact devoid of sexual meaning. Tony was an intensely sensual creature, and could imagine sex with just about any person, male, female or else. 

“Tony, I was hoping you could give me a personal unbiased assessment of the work Division takes on.” 

“Ah,” Tony nodded, eyes sharp. “You want a cynic to give you a cold-hearted opinion. No brain-washing ‘for the greater good’ shit like Lehnsherr spews which by the way, he doesn’t even believe, you should know that.” 

“I do know.”

“Okay,” Tony paused. “They recruited me after I got kidnapped five years ago. I decided to stop producing and commercializing weapons, and Frost approached me saying that now that I was off the business of war, maybe I was interested in helping keep the peace. They needed a tech and a hacker. So I joined up.” 

The resonance between the deeper levels of Tony’s psyche and his superficial consciousness announced this to be the truth. Charles nodded. 

“And as for the mission and blah blah—yeah, I guess it is for the greater good. I mean, they fuck-up from time to time, and I don’t always like the methods and I think Frost is a giant bitch with a stalactite shoved up her pert ass—and it is pert—but at the heart of it, yeah. I guess Division does some good.” 

“And this is enough for you?” Charles asked shrewdly. Tony’s eyes glinted, but he turned his face away to look down at his work table, as if hiding his hesitation in a simple speech pause. 

“I’m trying to make it feel right,” he admitted finally, shrugging. “It takes some getting used to. They’ve got more regulations than I would like. But I think if you give them a chance, you could start to like it here.” 

“I’ll never like it,” Charles stated, knowing it to be the truth. “I can’t deal with constrictions and limitations. Going to college was difficult enough. I don’t like to have people telling me what I’m supposed to be doing, especially not for _the greater good_.”

Tony leveled him with a steady gaze. “You don’t even believe in that, do you?” 

“I don’t believe in anything that demands I give up my freedom and my ability to choose for some higher purpose, the nature of which remains dark to me as I am deemed too low-ranking to ask any bloody questions,” his tone was intense, vibrating with anger and indignation. He realized he was squeezing his glass too tightly, knuckles gone white, and consciously devoted an effort to unclenching his hand. 

He was embarrassed and annoyed by his loss of control. By his impromptu showing of emotion—he should never have let Tony know he cared, that he was upset. Those who knew what you treasured knew to take it from you. 

Tony looked down to his glass again, the corners of his mouth turned down in a sad scowl. He twitched his lip once, as if testing the possibility of forcing a smile—but abandoned the effort directly. He shrugged slightly and downed the last of his scotch. 

“I do, a little,” he said quietly. 

Charles closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and stood up. 

“That’s something, at least,” he said, tone low. “That someone here genuinely believes. I suppose I could give that a chance, Tony. Thank you for your honesty.” 

“Sure, buddy. Anytime,” the man said, though he looked and sounded doubtful and uncertain. “Swing around whenever. I’m here half the time.” 

“Three fourths of the time,” Jarvis replied promptly. 

“I get no respect, none,” Tony complained. 

Charles smiled, and left the lab without another word, ducking below outstretched robotic arms, dodging hanging steel cables, stepping over discarded piping. As he made his way up on the elevator, he checked-in with Baskerville. 

Erik was sleeping; Baskerville had taken a post by the door, as was his habit, watching over the sleeping man. Erik’s sleep was deep and restful; he had been very fatigued lately, busy with reports and physical training with Charles, and constantly weighed down by the near-constant migraines. He’d once even briefly mentioned insomnia. It seemed to Charles that the man’s patterns of behavior were beginning to unravel. 

Just as well he’d managed to sleep, then. His fatigue was starting to manifest physically, making his face haggard and pale, his eyes sunken strangely into a thinning face. 

_And when, pray tell_ , Charles thought suddenly, stunned, ,i>did you begin to even notice?

In fact, looking more closely—Charles focused his telepathy, like a beam of light, searching, searching—yes, goddamnit! Baskerville had nudged Erik to sleep. The outrage of it was such that Charles was left quite speechless, dumbstruck by the very nerve his hound had just shown. 

He recalled the hound immediately to himself, watching in fuming silence as the creature materialized at his side, perfectly undisturbed. This was a sign, surely; his mind hadn’t thought anything wrong in using slight manipulation against Erik, so long as it meant aiding the man in any way. Charles didn’t go for outright telepathic manipulation; he could just as well twist someone up with his words, nudging, implying, suggesting, _lying_. No need to force anyone, for God’s sake. Charles knew the art of convincing someone that they wanted what Charles wanted; it was a fine entertaining game of shadows and half-truths that he knew how to win. What was Baskerville even doing? Erik was certainly unusually susceptible to telepathic orders…

_But I am not like Frost_ , he thought savagely, grinding his teeth. _I am not like her in the least—for I am not mutilating the man by manhandling him to sleep—I am simply remedying an underlying problem caused by her indiscriminate use of her telepathy to lobotomize him._

The line was a fine one, though, and Charles was shaken by Baskerville’s cavalier use of his influence, for once left unchecked. He could normally trust Baskerville to do as Charles’ rational mind suggested, but the hound was not always to be controlled; he was the creature of instinct and impulse after all, the animal part of Charles’ psyche invested with great power. Whims and tantrums were of course not unheard of, but when they did manifest normally they had a purpose. Why should Charles give a damn about Erik’s sleeping patterns? 

_You are spoiled rotten_ , Charles thought sullenly, storming his way into his room and shoving the door closed with more force than strictly necessary. 

“You are not to interfere again,” he murmured quietly, pinning Baskerville with a glare. “You are to leave him to his puppeteer; for I will not start a war with Frost over something as stupid a single man.” 

Baskerville snorted, sitting down and tilting his head. 

Ah, there was the problem—Erik was not just a single man. He was a puzzle piece, the small tip of an iceberg. Vast amounts of secrets lay beneath the surface of the water, and Charles could not for the life of him turn away from those secrets. Frost was obviously messing him up, but _why_? If she wanted him so badly to shut up about whatever he knew, why not just kill him and be done with it?

“Why do they need him alive?” he asked quietly into his empty room, sitting down on the bed. Baskerville’s ears were standing up straight, eyes aglow. “He’s not to be controlled—clearly a lot of effort is being invested into just that right now, and look at him, struggling to break free without even noticing. He’s a force of nature. Easier to just kill him…” 

Baskerville’s mouth parted, tongue lolling out; the blasted thing was _grinning_. 

“She wants him alive, so there must be something he has inside that head of his that she needs” Charles arched a brow. “She’s going to a lot of trouble to keep him docile under her thumb.”

Baskerville’s head tilted. 

“I suppose I did help him along in that respect, did I not?” Charles murmured, rubbing his forehead. “Well, all the same—she’s killing him by trying to restrain him. It’s not in his nature to be ordered around, I can tell. Not a dog but a wolf, that one.” 

The fact of the matter was that it was none of his damn business. Whatever Frost did with her playthings was her concern, and certainly nothing Charles needed to worry about. And if she wound up killing the man, so what? Erik was nothing of Charles’; he’d only known the man for two weeks, for God’s sake. Why should he give a damn if he bled out through the nose? 

_Only I do already_ , he thought bitterly, eyeing Baskerville. The hound grinned smugly. ,i>Goddamn you. 

And what if Charles did befriend Erik? It is not as thought offering some kindness would kill him, and Erik was obviously starved for it. He told himself he should just leave it well enough alone, but what Frost was doing to the man ruffled Charles’ feathers. No gift was meant to be used in such a way; Charles could manipulate and break and hurt in the name of his own defense, but he wouldn’t do it gratuitously, to someone that did not deserve it. 

And whatever is past was, where he came from, Erik was simply a good person. It sat wrong with Charles that he was being used like a puppet. Charles knew about innocent people being used like the toys of the powerful; he didn’t mean to project his own experience onto a different situations, but some uncomfortable parallelisms could not be helped. 

“But how did I get in the middle of this?” Charles muttered, a little annoyed. 

Baskerville snorted. To play the reluctant, innocent role now was disingenuous at best. He had broken through Erik’s defenses; he had wrapped himself around the man to protect him—which reminded him ne now had to move on the assumption Frost knew precisely what he was capable of at every turn. The rules of the game had changed. 

There was also one more thing to consider; Erik had already shown himself more than willing to trust Charles; indeed, he was ten times more open to Charles’ telepathic tricks than Frosts’ even though the woman’s powers had to be considerably more familiar. Then again, a mind could tell when it was being savaged, even if the conscious part of it remained blissfully unaware; every human being had an instinctual, animalistic part of their mind that had not evolved into careless denial. Charles, on the other hand, had not used his mind to hurt Erik. Instill some healthy dread, sure, but not _hurt_. 

And anyway, Charles pretended to be gone from this place as soon as it could plausibly be managed, and Erik could be a valuable instrument to that; not to mention to get rid of Frost, who he intensely disliked. And stealing from her that which she so doggedly clung to was quite appealing, if he was being honest. 

Charles had to wonder, though. Erik’s very memories had been changed—things that made a person who they are, invaluable bits of information that define a character. The core characteristics of who Erik was as a human being were untouched simply because one could not change someone’s natural disposition: you cannot make a naturally brooding person be, say, cheerful, by twisting their mind around. Eventually they’ll go back to brooding. 

But other things were certainly determined by experience and life. Charles knew he’d be a very different person if someone made him magically forget he’s killed his own father. 

Erik didn’t even have the right year he’d been born in. Why even lie about such a stupid thing? Did it matter how old he was? 

“None of this makes any bloody sense,” Charles huffed, irritated. 

Baskerville’s tail flopped from side to side loudly, and he yawned, great dark jaws open wide to reveal rows of gleaming serrated fangs. 

“Well, a new game plan then,” Charles crossed his legs, and gave Baskerville a look. “Keep Erik’s mind in one piece, but be subtle about it—no need to go on the offensive yet. And I,” he paused, and l took a deep breath. “will try not to bite the hand that feeds me.”


	10. Chapter 10

Charles knew his hastily put-together cover hadn’t worked when Emma Frost showed up at his room early the next morning. She had clearly meant to catch him asleep and off-balance, but Baskerville caught her approach in the hallway. Charles was sitting calmly on the bed, back against the headboard and legs stretched out under the covers, when she made her dramatic entrance. 

“And good morn to you as well,” he said meekly, hands folded primly in his lap. 

Frost slowed down, eyes narrowed, and closed the door carefully behind herself. Baskerville prowled to Charles’ bed and sat at his feet, eyes ablaze. Somehow, _somehow_ , Frost had not sensed him. Why? She had to be powerful. Was she merely incompetent? She certainly didn’t look it. 

“Well,” Frost said, easing herself down to the edge of Charles’ bed and crossing her legs. Charles really hoped she wasn’t aiming to seduce him, because that was going to be very awkward. It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful and sensual; it was that Charles didn’t have sex with people he didn’t find intellectually stimulating, and Frost was just about anything but that. 

“Indeed,” Charles drawled. 

“You’re certainly no level five telepath,” she settled on, mild. “Seven at least.”

Charles laughed. 

“If you wish.”

She narrowed her eyes. 

“Let’s put the cards on the table, Xavier. Why do you want Erik?”

Charles arched his brows. 

“I don’t. Kindly remember _you_ paired him with me.”

“Then why protect him?”

“Why lobotomize him?” he asked in turn, tilting his head. 

“I’m not,” she hissed. 

“Oh but you are,” Charles sat up, eyes intent. “It strikes me as rather unbelievable that you argue you cannot see you are killing him, slowly and painfully. Entire patches of memory are missing; _you_ may wish to play incompetent, but know now that I will _not_.” 

“The only reason Erik is alive is thanks to me,” Frost dropped her smile, and frowned. “He owes me everything. I won him.”

Charles laughed. 

“How stupid you must be,” he said softly. “If you think you can bend such a man until he will lick your shoes. I have known him for a little while and I can see he will not bend the knee.”

“He’s been with us for a long time,” she said quietly, eyes like chips of ice. “And he’s never tried to escape me.”

“Or if he tried, he was unsuccessful enough you could convince yourself he hadn’t tried at all,” Charles offered, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. “Is that what this is? You want him for yourself, like a little girl with a precious toy? Will you break him and put him back together the wrong way, over and over, because that’s what arouses you? Broken little sexual toys, is it, dear Miss Frost?”

The slap wasn’t a surprise, though she did it with more force that he had expected. Slowly turning his face towards her, he smiled, sharp like a knife. 

“Hit a never, darling?”

“What manner of creature are you?” she asked, eyes narrowed. Ah, but there was something else there beneath the anger, beneath the outrage—a little seed quickly growing. 

Fear. 

“I’m not a level seven telepath, I’ll tell you that much,” he answered, quietly. He leaned forward a little closer so he could stare into her eyes. “So if you won’t fuck him, why _do_ you keep him around, subdued like a pup?”

“That’s none of your business,” Emma smiled again. “Besides, what concern is it of yours? You don’t want him, after all.”

Charles smiled. “Keep your secrets, Miss Frost,” he murmured. “You won’t be keeping them for long.”

Her lips pursed in distaste, but her eyes had narrowed. She was angry, sure, but uncertain, now, as well. She didn’t know how powerful Charles was or what he was willing to do to get what he wanted—nor did she know, for that matter, _what he wanted_. Or did she? Had she been listening when he had spoken before in the conference room?

“But what’s the point?” she asked softly, blue eyes dropping to Charles’ mouth as if she thought she could tempt him to take her to bed and thus control him. Charles smirked. “We could get along.” She glanced at him again, noted his flat boredom, and arched a brow. 

“Unless _you_ want Erik.”

“This is very boorish,” he scolded, unimpressed. “I’m sure you can do better than that.”

Emma’s eyes flittered. “There’s no reason for us to be at war, Charles. We can simply help each other. You know what I need from you; do it and then—then we can part ways amicably enough.”

Ah. So she _had_ been listening. 

“My freedom. And all I have to do is step back and let you twist dear little Erik until he’s a senseless zombie.”

Emma shrugged. “He’s nothing to you.”

Baskerville, until then quiet and still, let his ears drop against his skull, eyes wide. The truth was Charles owed Erik nothing, had no responsibility or duty towards him. The only duty Charles had was to himself, to ensure his own safety and freedom. The hound whined. He could go—do this little task and go, it would cost him little to cooperate for a very short while. 

And look away when Erik’s nose bled, or when he held still too long, or when he was asked a simple question and the void of stolen memory rushed up to crush him. 

Charles smiled. 

“No,” he said thoughtfully, and watched Emma’s eyes widen. “My freedom for Erik’s life. It’s not enough. No, thank you. I think I’ll stay.”

Emma stared at him for a long while. Baskerville shifted, jaws opening, eyes aglow. 

“ _Why?_ ” she asked, almost a breath. 

“Because I want to,” Charles answered simply. “And because you can’t stop me.”

“I _can_. I—“

“No. No, I don’t think you understand. You lost your chance to bargain with me when you came to hat conference room to bully me. Up until that point I would have negotiated. But you shot that horse in the face, didn’t you?”

Charles moved the covers away and stood, went to the desk and sat in the chair instead, crossing his legs, as if he weren’t in plain white cotton pajamas and barefoot. This game he knew well enough. 

“I don’t think you understand at all. You should have let me go when you had the chance. Because now you’ve turned this from what I needed into what _I want_.”

Emma got up slowly, eyes like diamonds, now once again composed and cold. 

“And what do you want?”

Charles smiled. “Wait and find out.”

A long pause. 

“In case you cared, I will still do this little mission for you,” he continued. “I’m curious, and I have nothing better to do around here in any case.”

Emma made a vague gesture of exasperation with her hand and turned to the door, but before she touched the doorknob Charles spoke up again.

“For future reference,” he added, quiet. “There will be no more tempering with Erik’s brain. I was going to be subtle about it, but since you’ve chosen to be open with me, I’ll repay the kindness.”

Emma turned around and gave him a playful smirk. 

“So this is going to be a war between us after all.” 

“It was always going to be a war between us,” Charles replied. “It was only a matter of when. Have a good day, Miss Frost.”

Emma withdrew, because there could possibly be nothing left to say between them. Charles stayed in the chair, thoughtful, reviewing his decision and deciding that yes, it was the one he wanted. The only one he could do at this point, because Charles Xavier was all about escalating. 

Baskerville slid off the bed and came to rest his snout on Charles’ thigh, eyes like fire. Charles laid a hand softly on the top of his strong head, smoothing down the silk-soft fur. He felt the heat of the hound along his thighs and calves, pressed his bare foot against his belly to warm up his toes. The hound pressed closer, lashes fluttering. 

“Go to Erik,” Charles said absently, curling his fingers to fist his hands on Baskerville’s fur. “Stay with him, and watch. Frost will go to him. She must; already Erik trusts me more than he does her. Corrections to his behavior are necessary. If she tries to manipulate him, shield him; and be very aggressive about it, if you please.”

Baskerville dissolved. 

Charles sat there for a moment longer, contemplative, before he got up and went to have a shower. He was rinsing conditioner off his hair when Baskerville’s powers flared up. He paused momentarily to order the hound’s senses and align them with Erik’s well-structured mind, reinforcing shields and repelling outside influences. Then he withdrew. 

He was dressed and shaving in the bathroom when Erik knocked in the door. He called him in, rising the razor, and Erik joined him, leaning against the doorjamb. He looked well enough; well rested, which was a novelty, and no signs of blood in his nostrils. 

_What low standards I have_ , Charles mused. 

“Good morning,” Erik greeted, watching Charles methodically shave his cheekbone. 

“Mhm,” Charles hummed, squinting at the mirror. He huffed and looked at the razor, irritated. “I think my teeth have more edge than this thing.”

“Here, hand it over,” Erik offered his hand. Charles surrendered the razor, leaning his hip against the sink. Erik came closer to rinse it; the bathroom was really very small, and the space offer was limited. Erik was forced to get in Charles’ space, and his hand fell comfortably to Charles’s arm. It stayed there as Erik brought the razor up again and stared at it, eyes half-lidded. 

Charles took the chance to give him a closer, critical look. Erik had sharp masculine features; thin well-shaped lips, a strong nose, high cheekbones, expressive straight eyebrows and long-lashed blue eyes. Charles would have understood Emma wanting to take him to bed; understood, but not approved. Certainly not allowed. 

He wondered what would happen if he let Erik inside, let him permeate his shields, let him slip inside the borders of his mind to nestle there like a warm cat. Erik craved closeness like a starved man. It cost Charles little to give it to him; a kindness, a gesture. He closed his eyes and dispelled the outermost shields. 

He could feel the flow of Erik’s power against his telepathy, like electricity, static energy raising up the fine hairs on his arms. If he focused he could feel it happening; the metal sharpening, thinning, bending to Erik’s will, doing as he commanded. Erik’s hand was warm through the fabric of his shirt; he had a clean scent, no cologne, something vague but penetrating, like the taste of ozone on Charles’ tongue, that made his teeth ache and his skin crawl with repressed energy. 

Erik’s power, rising and falling against his own like the tides of the ocean. Oh, he was a powerful creature. The feel of it was— _heady_. 

Charles opened his eyes. Behind Erik, Baskerville was standing, fur soft like silk and eyes bright like the mouths of living volcanoes. 

Erik’s hand moved up from Charles’ arm to his jaw, and he tilted Charles’ face up. 

“May I?” he asked, quietly, eyes bright. 

The only logical answer to that was no. But Charles’ shields were down, and he was dizzy in the wake of Erik’s gift, swayed by Erik’s own thrill at the proximity—the man needed the contact so bad, he was so starved for it. Charles didn’t owe Erik anything. But for all the whims it bent to and all the tantrums it pursued, Baskerville was not a stupid creature. _Let him have it_. 

Charles nodded, and closed his eyes. Very carefully, Erik pressed the razor, scalpel-sharp, to his cheekbone, and started it dragging it meticulously down. The telepath relaxed and let the man handle the movements of his head. Erik wouldn’t hurt him, he couldn’t if he wanted to, and he very clearly didn’t want to. 

“Frost came to see me this morning,” Erik said, hushed in the quiet of the bathroom, as if the proximity between them made him reluctant to speak and shatter whatever intimacy had been suddenly born. 

Charles smiled slightly. “Did she. How fascinating. Tell me more.”

Erik made a vague sound. “She suggested we go out of the facility today,” he said. 

Charles opened his eyes. Erik was staring down at a spot on his chin, paying attention as he scraped the sharp metal against Charles’ pale skin. 

“I have a small mission to take care of,” Erik continued, rinsing the razor. Charles kept his eye on his downturned eyes, the stretch of the flesh of his lids, his strangely straight and masculine eyebrows. “I thought you could come with me. You seem to be suffering from some cabin fever.”

“And this idea came from out illustrious leader?”

Erik’s brows twitched closer. “Frost is not the leader of Division,” he said. 

Charles arches his brows. “Isn’t she?”

“She’s the second-in-command, if you will. The Colonel is the chief of Division. Sebastian Shaw.”

Ah. Interesting.

“So what do you say?” Erik reached behind Charles to grasp the towel and wet it. He wiped the rest of Charles’ shaving foam carefully, almost tenderly. “Join me for a stroll?”

So Emma wanted desperately out of the facility. Charles wondered what she was planning. He had declared war this morning, and now the move was hers. Clearly, she didn’t think Charles’ range was wide enough to reach the facility all the way from the city or, perhaps, she hoped the thousands of minds he’d be surrounded by would be some sort of buffer. White noise. 

Foolish. But Charles resolved to let her have her time. This was a game he knew how to play. 

“If it’ll get me out of here,” Charles nodded. He put his hands on Erik’s waist and pushed him to the side to brush by him out into the room. Erik liked being touched; Charles didn’t particularly mind. 

“But I’m warning you, I’m not going anywhere dressed like this,” he added, arching a brow. 

Erik gave him a dry look. “You’re such a princess. We’ll get clothes for you when we’re out—but for the record, they won’t be Versace or whatever it is you wear.”

Charles scoffed. “ _Versace_? I’m offended. I wore Tom Ford, I’ll have you know.”

“What did I do to deserve you?”

 _I wonder_ , Charles thought, and sent a wry look at Baskerville, who was tilting his head in similar puzzlement. That the blasted thing could manage to look cute, considering it was shaped after a hell-hound, was worthy of admiration. 

Erik led Chares through the facility as if he though Charles didn’t know where the garages were. Charles hadn’t shared his little trick of reading psychic imprints in walls, mostly because he was too lazy to explain it and Erik was a cynical man. Charles had the habit of keeping secrets; if Erik asked, maybe he’d tell him, but he wasn’t about to volunteer anything. 

The car was unremarkable; a sleek black Mercedes with normal, forgettable plates, and dark-smoked windows. Inside it was meticulously clean. Charles wondered if they used it to transport bodies. Baskerville materialized on the back seat and stretched out comfortably, even going as far as theatrically yawning. Charles twisted around to shoot him a look, but the hound smacked his lips and rolled out his long blood-red tongue, and then worked its jaw as if trying for the right position to accommodate his myriad of deadly fangs. 

“Everything alright?” Erik asked, buckling his seatbelt. 

“Hm,” was all Charles gave as reply, turning back around to buckle his own seatbelt. “Oh, do tell me you’ll take me for a drink, yes? I shall be indebted to your forever.” 

Erik started the car and backed out of the spot, smiling crookedly. “That _is_ tempting.”

Charles, a little rattled by—whatever that had been back in his bathroom, chose not to answer. Baskerville snorted. 

They finally emerged from the underground garage out into the road. 

“Reminds you of home a bit?” Erik asked, amused. 

If it kept raining like this for very long, anytime now they’d have to hope Noah showed up with his big boat. 

“Do you miss England?” Erik continued, absently, paying attention to the road. Charles could feel the currents of his powers buffeting against his shields; he was keeping the car under his command to avoid the possibility of accidents. 

“It was a place to live,” Charles answered quietly, focusing on the shifts and raises of Erik’s gift, following his minute adjustments to the car’s course. He paused. “Do you miss Poland?” 

Erik’s mind immediately replied: _no_. Erik’s mouth twisted slightly, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s a little blurry.”

Blurry wasn’t the word Charles would have chosen. Even worse, Erik’s subconscious knew something that it wasn’t communicating to the rest of Erik’s brain, like certain areas of memory had been deliberately walled off. 

“Would you put the car on the shoulder for a moment?” Charles requested, shifting in his seat. Erik shot him a curious look, but complied easily enough, letting the car slow to a halt by the road. Charles held up a hand for a moment, throwing his telepathy out in a dome. As he had thought, Emma’s telepathy was there, a small diamond-like snake. Baskerville sat up. 

Charles didn’t even say anything; simply and abruptly, he severed the snake and shattered its body. Frost would be having a nasty migraine all day. 

Now certain Erik was free of her direct interference, Charles unbuckled his belt and turned so he was facing the man. 

“Give me your left arm.” He said, stretching out his right hand palm-up. 

Erik gritted his jaw. “I know what you’re after.”

“I doubt you do,” Charles replied, leaning forward. He could reach out and grab the man’s wrist—Erik wouldn’t stop him, he knew. But it was better if Erik volunteered it. Baskerville sat up, ears prickling forward and tongue lolling out. 

A long pause. The only sound in the car was the rain hitting the windows and the metal, and the rhythmic asthmatic sound of the windshield-wipers working frantically. Erik worked his jaw, the muscles ticking, eyes fixed in the windshield. Finally he tilted his head in reluctance, but twisted around and presented Charles with his right forearm, covered by the sleeve of his turtle-neck sweater. Charles smiled slightly, grasped his wrist and carefully pulled the sleeve up to Erik’s elbow. 

Sure enough, there sat the numbers. 240006. 

Charles stroked a finger carefully over the skin; the tattoo was raised a little, rough and dark. A crude, painful job. Erik’s hand fisted. The play of the muscles and tendons as he did was truly lovely. Charles pressed his palm against the tattoo. 

“Do you know what it is?”

Erik swallowed. “I do.”

Charles waited. Baskerville shifted to press his paws to the floor of the car and reach his head between the two seats, gazing at Erik’s face with interest. 

“But do you know what it _means_?” Charles insisted. 

Erik wrenched his arm away and curled it over his stomach as if he felt sick, yanking the sleeve back down. He looked pale as a sheet suddenly, eyes wild. Baskerville’s jaw snapped shut. He could taste it; _fear_. 

“I know what it means,” Erik said, forcing his voice to be even. “I’m circumcised. I can read Hebrew, even though I don’t remember studying it. But I don’t know why I have it. I was born in nineteen-eighty. I don’t know why I would have this on me.”

Charles thought about that for a moment. 

“Have you researched the number itself?”

Erik nodded. “It was branded into a boy named Max Eisenhardt. He died in Auschwitz in nineteen-forty-five at the edge of fifteen. He was Polish, as well. But that’s all I could find about him.”

“Maybe a distant relative of yours? A link in the bloodline?”

Erik’s eyebrows drew close to each other. “Not according to my family records. I can’t be his descendant if he died at fifteen.”

“No, I suppose not,” Charles said pensively. He rubbed a hand tiredly over his eyes and shrugged, settling back on his seat. 

“Are you done with your questions now?” Erik glared at him. 

“Not nearly,” Charles replied, waving a hand dismissively to the wheel to indicate Erik should be driving again. “But it looks like you don’t have any worthwhile answers.”

Erik pulled the car back into the road and twisted his long mouth in a grimace. 

“If I can’t give you the answers, who else?”

Charles answered: “I want a suit. I know a good place to buy good-quality ones, and I know they’ll have trench-coats as well. One of those would suit you, I’ll wager. Why do you always wear turtle-necks anyway?”

Erik’s eyebrows migrated to his hairline. 

“I don’t concern myself much with what I wear,” he said finally, warily. 

“You ought to. You tend to intimidate people with your body language. A sharp suit would only increase that effect.”

“Are you my sassy gay friend now?”

“I’m straight. Mostly. And I don’t sass; I advice.”

Erik rolled his eyes, but he didn’t vehemently oppose when Charles directed him to a hidden little clothing store. Just as they were getting off the car Erik reached over and grasped his arm, stopping him. 

“Will they know you in this store?” he asked suspiciously. 

“I’ll wipe their minds later,” Charles shrugged off his hand. “Don’t be fussy.” 

“And pray tell how do you intend to pay for this?” Erik insisted as Charles rounded the car to join him. 

“You’re getting paid for your services,” Charles pointed out. “And I know this,” he gave Erik’s long body a swift look. “isn’t taking up much maintenance money. So you’re going to pay for it.”

Erik huffed a short, disbelieving laugh. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m joking,” Charles said flatly, and pushed the door open to enter the store. The clerk turned around, and upon spotting Charles grinned widely. 

“Mister Xavier! I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been otherwise occupied,” Charles offered a winning smile. “As you can see, I’m in a bit of a pickle,” he added, gesturing down at himself. The clerk wrinkled his nose comically at the cotton shirt and pants. 

“Quite unlike you, sir. And your friend?”

“He’ll be having a suit too,” Charles bulldozed over Erik’s quiet reply. “I’m thinking, understated, grey, sober.”

“Oh yes,” the clerk nodded approvingly, squinting at Erik’s face. “Very good for his eyes. And for yourself?”

“Casual, light blue perhaps? I’m taking suggestions.”

“It’ll be good for my eyes?” Erik hissed. 

“That and carrots,” Charles retorted. 

“This is insane. What are we even _doing_ here? I have a mission, Charles.” 

“Erik, good Lord. Live a little. Do you ever do anything for fun _at all_? Don’t say dismembering people, that’s just callous.” 

Erik stared at him, speechless. “I don’t—Jesus Christ. _What did I do to deserve you?_ ”

The clerk returned, studying Erik with a critical eye. “Hat, sir?”

“Yes, he’ll take a hat,” Charles replied, eyes fixed on Erik. 

“No,” Erik growled, but the clerk was leaving already. He glared furiously at Charles. “Fuck your hat.”

“Erik,” Charles caught the man’s eyes. “Listen to me. I know how people think, and I know how they see other people. You’re not an inconspicuous man, Erik; you’re very tall and very fit, and you have a handsome face. People notice you. If you wear these sorts of unremarkable clothes,” he gestured at Erik’s turtleneck and dark jeans. “People have nothing to focus on but your face. They’ll remember your eyes, the slope of your eyebrows, your nose, the shape of your mouth. That makes you _recognizable_.”

Erik seemed to have calmed down, and now was really listening to what Charles was saying, attentive. 

“Our first line of defense is always anonymity, Erik. Put on a suit, wear a hat, choose the right sunglasses, and when someone asks people to identify you, your facial features will be a blur.”

“Is that how you’ve blended in, all these years?”

“Part of it,” Charles admitted. 

Erik nodded, waving a hand and seemingly putting himself at the clerk’s mercy. Charles left them to themselves, wandering the store, looking at the hangers that caught his attention. He chose for himself a casual, unassuming two-piece suit and a fine starched white shirt. When he returned to the back of the store, he found Baskerville sitting on the ground, looking absolutely delighted. 

Charles arched a brow and took a seat in an armchair, crossing his legs. Baskerville came to leaned against his thighs, eyes bright. 

When he finally emerged from the booth, Erik was wearing a very dark grey suit, a black shirt and a rather bright thin tie. He looked absolutely beautiful. Charles was stunned. 

“Well,” he said, blinking. “This was a good idea. I’m rather proud of myself.”

Erik straightened his tie a little self-consciously. “I haven’t worn a suit in—“ memory missing. “a while.”

Baskerville’s eyes fell down, hackles rising. The reminder of Erik’s broken mind made Charles’ moot take a turn towards the dark; but he smiled winning rose and batted Eriks’ hands away to fix the knot himself. 

“You look fine, darling. Now let’s get you a coat and a hat, hm?”

“I feel like your toy,” Erik muttered, but he was undeniably leaning closer to Charles. His traitorous, needy body. Well, nothing for it. Charles patted his shoulder and stepped away. 

“But what a well-dressed toy you are.”

Erik rolled his eyes. They picked up coats and, in the end, Erik did give in a buy a hat. It looked perfectly fine on him. Charles always looked like a hipster when he wore hats, it was irritating. 

When the time to pay came, Charles made the clerks believe Erik and he had been two anonymous men that had randomly wandered in, and made up false names to be written down on the store’s book. 

The mission Erik had to take care of was meeting a source and getting information from them. He drove them to a small café in a perfectly forgettable part of the city, and then told Charles to wait in the bar while he sat at a table with his contact, a slim pretty-looking lady that gave Erik a very definite once-over as soon as he crossed the door. 

Charles entitled to ordering himself a scotch, but then it was nearly noon, and it felt just a tad too decadent even for him. Instead he ordered tea, and settled to wait, with Erik in his line of sight. 

And he cast his mind out. Out, far and wide, skimming, skimming, reading random minds for amusement, but always flying, shifting, moving. When he found her he opened his eyes, and smiled. 

She gasped. 

_Hello, Miss Frost_ , he sent out, calm and warm, and politely settled her dizziness with a gentle sweep of his mind. _How kind of you to invite me out today. The city really is lovely, and Erik makes for charming company. I hope you have used your time alone wisely; I didn’t peek in, if you were worried. I just thought I’d drop in to let you know we’re having a nice time. Ta._

And let her stew in her terror.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, sorry this took so long. I wanted to work on the RBB since it's got a deadline, but now that's I'm fine with that I'm back with Bell's Toll, promise. 
> 
> Thank you all for your patience <3

There is a point, in every game, where you stand at the edge of the precipice and sway and wonder, will I fall, or will I live? The tipping point. To back down, or to fall and face the consequences. 

Charles Xavier didn’t know how to back down and, in all honesty, if he had known how to, he would not have had the inclination. 

Which was really the main—because he was too honest with himself to say it was the only—reason evening found him drying his hair with a towel, shirtless and barefoot, sitting on Erik’s bed. Erik, seemingly having accepted the fact Charles knew of no such thing as boundaries or preposterous concepts like personal space and privacy, was sitting to his desk pouring himself over paperwork. 

“That seems tedious,” Charles commented. 

“It is,” Erik replied distractedly. 

“Don’t you have someone else to do that for you?”

“I’m the one that does this for someone else.”

“Ah. Not exactly the top of the food chain.”

“You know I’m not,” Erik replied, finally giving in and turning sideways in his chair to give Charles a stern look—only his eyes got caught somewhere between Charles’ eyes and his chest, most likely, it seemed, around the height of Charles’ slender collarbones. 

“I approve of your shower,” Charles smiled indulgently. 

“I’m so glad,” Erik said flatly. “No really, I think I’ll sleep better tonight for knowing that.”

“I always do concern myself with the quality of your rest,” Charles got up and stood over Erik, leaning close to look into the man’s grey eyes. “And how _are_ you sleeping?”

“On my back and with my eyes closed,” Erik retorted. 

Charles straightened. “Very mature.”

Erik rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I’m fine. I haven’t had a nosebleed in a couple of days. I assume that means I’m getting better.”

He _was_ getting better, but only because Baskerville has been snapping savagely every time Frost tried to get her icy tendrils inside the man’s mind. This was no hardship, as Baskerville really needed no encouragement to snap at people he disliked (as in, everyone, everywhere, after before and during their birth, except apparently Erik Lehnsherr), and he especially disliked Emma Frost. 

“You should catch up on sleep,” Charles arched his brows. “I like you pretty.”

 

“Oh, _thank you_ for that,” Erik muttered, turning back to his papers and picking up his pen. 

“And why are you back to wearing these ghastly things?” Charles demanded, plucking distastefully at the worn fabric of Erik’s turtleneck. 

“Because I can’t be wearing that suit everyday, obviously.”

“That is why other suits, casual suits, were created, back in the dawn of time,” Charles lectured wisely, settling his hand on Erik’s broad shoulder. “So that little boys like you could wear suits every day without having to confine themselves to the limitations of expensive fabrics and well-knotted ties.”

“And thus you meet your daily quote of condescension.”

“Not nearly,” Charles commented, going over to flop down on Erik’s bed. Baskerville, sitting primly by Erik’s side, kept a sharp eye on the documents. They were of course nothing top-secret; Erik would never work on those with Charles floating around like annoying, bored and overbearing moth. 

“And anyway, that you don’t wear suits doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in other sorts of clothing. Those cargo pants are awful.”

“Ever heard of pragmatism and comfort?”

“Ever heard of style and taste?”

Erik dropped his pen noisily and dropped his forehead to his hand, sighing. He shook his head and stood, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed facing Charles. The side of Erik’s hip pressed against the side of Charles’, and the telepath stilled, senses stirring and spreading like feathered wings, caressing. Erik’s mind di not recoil like it did when Frost swept by. Another small triumph. 

“Charles, this little routine of yours of being like an obnoxious child isn’t going to get you out of this mess.”

“Oh, no,” Charles threw an arm over his eyes. “Please, no more heartfelt and genuine kindness, I can’t take it. It gives me migraines.”

Baskerville had come closer, and now, easy as you please, rested his great head on top of Erik’s thigh. The man shifted, stroked his hand down his thigh as if he could feel the heat of fur and flesh. The dual sigh of Baskervilles’ solid, heavy head and Erik’s hand going through his jaw and snout made Charles’ head ache. He closed his eyes. 

Stretched out his mind, like the nose of a curious pup, let it bump up against the formidable shields of Erik’s mind, where it shifted from pup to water, licking, lapping at the walls. He tasted steel and stone. Deeper beneath lay ash and despair, bitter like defeat. Charles dragged claws along the walls, shredding the metal, peeling away layers. 

Erik swayed. 

Charles opened his eyes and withdrew, settling his hand soothingly on top of Erik’s forearm. It wasn’t fair that he used the man as pawn, caught in the crossfire of a war he’d never understand, if even he ever became aware of it. But it wasn’t just about robbing Frost of her favored toy; it was about what little remained in Charles of a boy that had once been sweet and kind. He didn’t remember that boy clearly now, like a vague shadow-memory of the past, half buried beneath layers of hate and pain hardened into scars thick as the bars of a cage. 

He remembered some of that boy, blossoming telepathic powers and fearless experimenting, and he though _you could have killed them_.

Charles had no love for innocence. He didn’t treasure, like a precious gem, the pure white bliss of ignorance. He’d never known it. 

Charles didn’t care for the weak and helpless, sparing them little thought as a race quite alien to himself. He didn’t bother trying to protect anyone; the weak would always fall prey to someone and the innocent would always break or die before breaking. There was no deep and hidden part in Charles, romantically kept buried beneath the ruins of a child’s dream, which would tear at his clothes for the fate of the helpless. 

There was this. A predator in a sheep’s disguise, clever eyes and a tongue coated in poison. This creature, this thing that remained, not quite human but not quite anything else, glimpsed the possibility of more in Erik Lehnsherr. _Potential_. A dormant power like a lightning storm, trapped in the clouds and out of reach, chained and muzzled. 

There was a different Erik Lehnsherr hidden behind the tall walls of the prison in his mind, something dark and bloodthirsty, coiled, like the spine of a long black snake, patient. Whatever it was that Frost has so desperately locked away, it _ached_ to destroy.

Charles wanted to free it. _Like to like_. 

Baskerville’s eyes were glowing like the death of stars. Charles shifted his hand on Erik’s forearm and pulled, so the man leaned in closer, trusting, so trusting, that Charles could not or would not hurt him. 

“Show me your gift again,” he murmured, hand sliding up across the crook of elbow to the underside of Erik’s bicep, fingers sinking into the hard muscle to feel the beating of the pulse against their tips. With the contact Erik’s mind opened up to him like the petals of a flower, unknowingly even to him. Erik was conditioned to welcome telepathic interference. Charles could have shattered the shielding, harshly and abruptly, setting free the memories to align themselves where they belonged. But to do so would be to raze the man’s mind, and for all its artificial order, Erik’s mind was quite a lovely thing. There was no point in needlessly destroying it. 

“What do you want me to do?” Erik asked, blinking as if attempting to dispel a haze, as if Charles proximity made him dizzy. 

“Anything. I just want you to use it.”

“Why?” Erik shifted to face him more comfortably, bracing his hand on the side of Charles’ shoulder to steady himself. His eyes were very grey beneath this light, like slate and ice and the grey sky before a storm. His other hand, the hand connected to the arm Charles was gripping, settled at ease on Charles’ chest and moved confidently up to the base of his throat, warm against his collarbones. 

“Your mind lights up with it,” Charles closed his eyes. He could feel Baskerville become smoke and fade with a whisper of power released. Erik shivered. 

The taller man leaned forward, closer, so their foreheads were almost touching. Charles braided his power to the searching tendrils of Erik’s, as they sank down into the metal bedframe, curious and cautious, traveling through the particles, mapping out the composition, _understanding_. From one molecule to the other it jumped, awareness awaking gradually, fitting everything like a detailed map in Erik’s mind. Until he could tell the exact depression of their combined body weight upon the metal mesh beneath the mattress, and the way the floor touched the bottoms of the bed’s legs where they rested. 

Then, with a push, like a nudge, Erik’s mind rose up dominant and gave a command; the particles vibrated. The bed heated. Charles gasped, eyes wide, feeling the command as if left Erik’s mind and traveled through the whispers of connection to the metal, now as much a part of Erik as his eyes and the long thin line of his mouth. Beneath Charles’ fingertips and back, particles and heart beat as one. 

“Lovely,” he murmured, eyes falling closed. 

Erik allowed his gift to fade, leaving the bedframe to cool on its own. He didn’t move away, even when Charles released his arm. He was curved over him now, almost looming. With a mental jerk, Charles realized that Erik wanted him. If he allowed it, if he simply stayed still and did not move away or reject him, Erik would lean those last few inches and kiss him. In the context of this new knowledge, this sudden understanding, a lot of other things clicked unexpectedly into place. Erik wanted him; he concerned himself with his well-being, he wanted to be around Charles, wanted to teach him things that would keep him safe—wanted to convince Charles to stay. Here. With him. 

_No_. Charles’ eyes flew open, body stiffening. Baskerville materialized, abruptly, hackles rising, eyes like fire. 

Erik’s eyes, too close for comfort, darted from one of his eyes to the other. He could tell Erik had noticed the shift in Charles’ mood, like a piece suddenly snapping out of alignment. He backed off slowly, eyes alert and movements cautious, as if he thought Charles might lash out at any moment. 

Baskerville’s growl rumbled so deep Charles’ bones rattled with it. He swallowed and sat up, moving away from the man, troubled. It felt like his lungs were constricted by the cage of his ribs, like his stomach had crushed in on itself. 

_Fear_. But why?

Baskerville could tear Erik’s mind to shreds, make it into crimson dripping ribbons. He need not be afraid of Erik—he could not hurt him. So why? He turned his face, ignoring Erik as he rose slowly away from the bed, to stare instead at the hound. 

_But you wouldn’t_ , he thought accusingly, outraged. The hounds’ eyes glowed like fresh-spilled magma. _You wouldn’t hurt him for me._  
Erik jerked, suddenly. Charles’ eyes snapped to him. 

“I wish she’d stop that,” Erik growled. “Frost needs me.”

Baskervilles’ ears flattened against his skull. He may well feel ashamed; he was supposed to be keeping Erik’s mind blocked and safe. 

“We’ll call it a night, then,” Charles said briskly, getting to his feet to slip on his shoes and twist into his shirt. 

Erik didn’t stop him, but his jaw worked and his eyes spoke volumes. Evidently the man was not so stupid he failed to feel whatever was building between them. And just as he could feel them connected, somehow, he had to have realized something had spooked Charles. That very connection, possibly. Charles wasn’t used to people wanting him. Or, rather, not just wanting him out of the pureness of their hearts or the ardor rising blinding between their thighs. There had to be something else. Erik might not be intelligent enough to devise some sort of clever scheme, but Erik’s mind was not completely his own, and desires were easily manipulated. 

If Frost was behind this, if she thought she could play Charles by putting Erik in his way, she was sorely mistaken. 

Even if Baskerville spilled drool across the floor for a brush of Erik’s fingertips, Charles was still the dominant force in his mind, rational and cold. He would _not_ be fooled. Besides, Erik was conditioned to welcome telepathy, even if he didn’t know it. It was entirely possible he had no idea what he wanted, he was just attracted to Charles because Charles had an ability that Erik’s mind was attuned to. 

_All speculation_ , he told himself fiercely as he left the room and walked briskly through the corridors to his own bedroom, Baskerville trailing him. _All of it meaningless._

He drew the chair from under the desk and sat, crossing his legs. Baskerville stood by the door, restless, alert. 

“You can’t go to him now, she mustn’t know you,” Charles said, tilting his head. He closed his eyes and relaxed into the hard plastic of the chair, letting his senses spread out, blanket-like, until they brushed up against the walls. 

_Tell me._

Frost was guarding herself well, and enveloping Erik as well, but she didn’t know to hold her psychic resonance close to herself. The walls heard, and there were no secrets so long as Charles wanted to hear. 

He couldn’t hear the exact words, but he got the gist. A mission, outside base. Assassination. No back up. Erik was reluctant, surprised. Concerned. 

Charles pulled back and looked at Baskerville, amused. 

“She means to get him out of our range, old boy. God knows what she’ll be doing with him once he’s out from beneath my wing.” 

Baskerville made a low, vibrating noise, great head lowering, eyes like banked fires. 

“No, I don’t think we’ll be letting that happen, darling.”

Charles went to bed, and slept deeply and dreamlessly, as he had always slept, ever since he had disassembled his subconscious and conscious mind into two separate, alienated parts, and Baskerville had been born. 

He woke, in the morning, before dawn. Baskerville’s head had lifted from his paws, and he was staring at the door. Something had snatched Charles from his rest, like pulling at a string connected to his mind, yanking him to wakefulness. 

He lay in his bed for a moment, blinking slowly, limbs heavy and delicious with drowsiness. 

Baskerville’s ears swiveled back. A ghost of something not unlike pain, coated in the white-hot burn of horror unrestricted by rational thought that could only exist in nightmares and children. A whine. 

_Erik._

Charles sat up, slowly, reaching out with his mind. He found a block like a wall of ice, iridescent and solid. He gritted his jaw, hardened his telepathy to a spear—and stopped. 

_No_ , he thought calmly. _You don’t get to do this to him, not on my watch._

He pushed off the blankets and stalked out of the room, turning the guards away whenever one would have stepped on his way. 

Erik was tangled in his sheets, breathing harshly, chest heaving. Sweat glistened on the pale skin of his face. Charles stood over the bed for a moment, allowing the waves of psychic distress to roll over and around him without interrupting them. He would not dive into the nightmare; Erik’s terrors were his own, private and intimate. 

Charles sat by the edge of the bed and smoothed his hand over Erik’s damp forehead. He only got a glimpse of the nightmare before it dispelled; tall fences and ash in the sky, despair so bottomless it tore a hole through his stomach and made him heave. He pushed it all away, _no more dreams, darling._

Erik settled back, breathing gradually more slowly, face relaxing. Charles lingered, watching his face carefully. Baskerville hopped onto the bed, long snout descending to sniff delicately at Erik’s long torso, bare beneath the sheets. Charles’ eyes followed it, and fixed. 

They were old marks, some almost fading into the rest of the skin, but they were there all the same, and Charles could see them. Countless scars, some clean and small and some nasty, long and jagged. Their locations and proportions made no sense but to map out a history of pain and mistreatment. Malnourishment, as well, if Charles was honest; Erik was a tall man, with shoulders that spoke of a promise never quite fulfilled. His muscles were long and flat, too close to the bones, and while they made him elegant and slender they also told of hunger. 

Baskerville’s long tongue flattened over the dark ink on Erik’s left forearm. The hound folded his legs and stretched out, heavy and warm, between Erik and the wall. There was no physical space for him to fit there, but Baskerville heeded no such laws—indeed, he heeded no laws at all. 

Charles leaned in, closer, fingertips ghosting over the pale expanse of Erik’s chest, a canvas of torture and pain the man itself knew nothing about. Why take these memories from him? Not kindness, surely. Frost had no such inclinations. Was it these lost memories that made Erik potential yet to be satisfied? Was that what had been taken from him, the urge to destroy, the eagerness to burn? 

Why not simply kill him, if she didn’t want him to break free and wreck chaos? There had to be something else. 

He curled his fingers into a fist, and straightened. 

Maybe precisely for the same reason Charles would not have killed him. He would have brought him in close, enjoyed the show as he brought the world down to shards and splinters. But that wasn’t what Frost wanted. So why keep Erik, and cripple him to nothing but a shadow of himself, docile as a sheep and willing to be commanded? The perfect little dog. 

_Perhaps_ , he murmured to Baskerville, watching the hound’s eyes swivel up to him, red as arterial blood. _But she’s using a queen as a pawn. What a waste._

And of course she was giving him nightmares. The nightmares would scare his mind so much he would stop attempting to break through the block. They would make him recoil from the possibility held in those memories. Who would want to remember such things? Sometimes Charles wished he could forget. But you could be nothing more than what you were, and nothing less. 

_Stay with him_ , he ordered, and Baskerville settled his great head on Erik’s shoulder. _Ward away the nightmares and shield the memories from her. Let him begin to remember. If it’s as bad as she seems to fear it is—then I want it._

Charles went back to his room and lay in his bed, but sleep would not come. He slept very little in any case, but now his mind was churning out possibilities, straining to understand. But Charles was laying the pieces on the table and looking at the image they presented. The obvious answer was the least likely.

Erik could not, under any possible circumstance, have been in a Nazi concentration camp. It was absolutely impossible. He was thirty years old, forty if he was well preserved, and it didn’t look to Charles as though he was. The scars were not recent. They were consistent with a child that was brutally tortured and malnourished, which would be likely in a concentration camp, especially if he was identified as a mutant. But the timelines did not match up. 

A post-war experimentation laboratory made more sense. A naïve fool would believe those to no longer be in existence, but Charles had spent his childhood in one, and was not about to make such a blatantly imbecilic mistake. 

Erik Lehnsherr had obviously been experimented on, and then treated to a healthy dose of telepathic brain-washing to cover up the tracks of his tormentors. Has it been Frost? Likely. She seemed the type. Or was she just putting Erik together so that she could use his certainly stunning gift? Patching him up, stitching him together like Frankenstein’s monster, a creature whole enough to be a lapdog but at the core incapable of independent thought. A life like an edited movie’ remove the parts you dislike and keep the rest. 

But that still didn’t explain the numbers in Erik’s arm. A distasteful joke on account of his Jewish heritage? He would not put that beyond someone who would put a child to the blade. But why cover up _that_ knowledge? Who was Maximilian Eisenhardt? Was it possible he was a link in Erik’s lineage? No. Surely too young to have had offspring before his death. 

The pieces did not match. He was missing data. 

Unacceptable. He would have answers. 

His telepathy alerted him to Erik, moving down the corridor towards his door. Charles had been here for hours, motionless, thinking, and still he had arrived at no satisfying conclusions. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair, disgruntled. Baskerville at least appeared to be in a good mood. Erik’s mind felt ordered and rested. At least someone had gotten some sleep. 

He rose from the bed and changed into jeans and a white t-shirt, uncomfortable with the chance of being caught in such vulnerable clothes as those he slept in by someone who so obviously desired him. Charles himself didn’t quite know what to make of that bit of information. Erik was obviously open to a sexual relationship, which was strange considering the division he so punctiliously made in his head between himself as a commanding officer and Charles as a vulnerable subordinate. 

The contradiction seemed out of character enough that even Erik failed to comprehend it in its entirety. From what Charles could tell most of the recruits in this facility were younger than himself; clearly, Erik would never contemplate the possibility of a partner with those below his age group, perhaps feeling it would be an abuse of authority. But for all the fact he was beneath him in rank, Charles was his equal in so many other things, the lines had blurred. 

There was also the fact that Erik, despite his conscious rejection, was attracted to telepathy. That he was attracted to power was beyond doubt; Erik relished gifts greater than his own with very little bashfulness. He was as far from shy as you could get. If Charles gave him any space, he would almost certainly pursue his attraction. But beyond the physical gratification, what could he hope to accomplish? Certainly he couldn’t expect Charles would fold to his will in the eventuality of them becoming lovers. What could he want from Charles that he could not hope to get unless they fucked?

In all of this he hadn’t even factored his own feelings regarding the subject yet. Charles had very little sexual inclinations if left to his own devices; he had no need to commune with anyone, and he generally disliked physical contact. In his experience, physical contact meant pain or, at the very least, discomfort. He’d had intercourse, of course, over the years of his younger adulthood, because for all of his dislike he did have the biological need, but it had nearly always been with women. 

Then again, Baskerville doted on Erik. Charles was not removed from himself enough not to recognize _that_ sign. 

Erik knocked on the door just as Baskerville trotted through it, happy as you please. Charles called Erik to come in and settled on the one chair, legs crossed, uninviting warmth or overtures of friendship. Erik, who was not an idiot, kept his distance. 

“I’m going to be leaving for a couple of days,” he said. “I have a mission.”

Charles arched his brows, “Back on active duty, then?”

“They need my gift.”

“Ah. And what am I to do while you go off to merrily assassinate unsuspecting bastards?”

“I’m pretty sure they suspect.”

“I notice you don’t argue the ‘merrily’ part.”

“I don’t need to, it’s beneath me.”

“Oh, learning new, polysyllabic words? I am ever so pleased.”

Erik opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it again and rubbed his eyes with a hand, letting himself fall on the edge of the bed. 

“It’s too early for you to give me this much trouble. I’m going to be gone for a couple of days, so I’m leaving you with Logan to work on your hand-to-hand and weapons training. They tell me he’s immune to telepathy, so that should be fun.”

“I am already imagining the endless joy,” Charles drawled flatly. There was a pause. He considered Erik. The man did look somewhat better. “Eager to stretch your legs?”

Erik thought about the question for a moment. “I suppose.”

“Convincing.”

Erik shrugged. “I don’t know that I’m completely recovered from—last time.”

“Ah, yes. That blurry failed mission.”

“I still can’t remember how it happened. How am I supposed to avoid making that mistake again?”

Charles sat still, thinking. “Who says the mistake was yours? Maybe the odds were against you. Maybe you were ambushed. Maybe you were set-up. Maybe it was just plain black luck.” 

“It was my operative out there, and now he’s rogue,” Erik replied intensely. “ _I_ failed. And I don’t know how.”

“You can’t take responsibility for what is in the minds of others. Not even you can be that much of a control freak.”

“There have to have been signs. I missed them. And I can’t even remember what went down precisely. What if I do the same now? What if I miss the signs?” 

Charles let his shoulders rise and fall. “There’s no choice but to risk it. You won’t know until you’re there. For all you are aware, you are perfectly ready.” 

“I don’t _feel_ ready,” Erik confessed, suddenly raw. 

_Oh_ , Charles realized, heart sinking. _You came to me for reassurance, you blind fool._

There was a long silence as Erik rubbed his hands over his face, seeking for all intents to find some composure. If what Erik needed was for Charles to give him some sort—of comfort, some way in which he could deal with his fear and turn it into fuel for his actions, then—Charles was at a loss. He had nothing to offer. He himself believed himself impervious to fear until the evening previous when Erik had nearly kissed him. And wasn’t that a fine joke? He could handle any sort of pain, but threaten with affection and his knees buckled in terror. 

He opened his mouth and spread his hands, intending to admit he had no way to help, but Baskerville’s had snapped up, eyes on fire. Charles shut his mouth. The hound stared at him, standing by Erik’s side, still as a statue. 

Of course. Baskerville missed nothing—if Erik really was not ready to be on active duty and began to fail, Baskerville would be able to tell, and redirect him. 

This would naturally also serve the purpose of keeping Erik in Charles protection, since Baskerville would be able to shield him. Charles could see the perfect sense of that, but Baskerville—Baskerville just wanted to protect Erik. 

_You dim pup_ , Charles thought bitterly. _No good will ever come of this, mark my words._

“I might be able to help you,” he said, gathering himself. Erik’s head shot up, eyes wide and hopeful. Like a child. 

Suddenly, like the great shift of tectonic plates, Charles understood. His _distrust_ , that was what Frost had taken from Erik. She had removed the memories with surgical precision to make Erik malleable to her commands, and in doing so had unwittingly made him trustful as a boy. Erik was a pawn—the _perfect_ pawn!

Charles breathed out, too shocked by the revelation to even smile. Of course, Frost could not have expected to run into a telepath as powerful or more so than herself—could not have expected Erik to feel unwittingly attracted to someone who could offer that which he didn’t know he wanted: the return of the memories that would allow him to be his true self, whole and complete, uncontrollable. 

No guile, then, no trick—Erik truly did _want_ him. If this had been Frost’s ploy, Charles knew he would be able to tell; such a false desire implanted artificially would glare out at him and, most likely, would make Erik turn away rather than pursue him. 

Now he laughed. 

“Charles?” Erik was staring at him, frowning. Baskerville’s tongue had lolled out; the thing was grinning, as well. 

“I can definitely help you,” he said, rising from the chair and moving to the bed. He braced a hand on Erik’s broad shoulder and kneeled on the mattress. 

“How?” Erik frowned at him. 

“Close your eyes,” murmured Charles, shifting, sliding his legs down the outside of Erik’s long thighs so they were pressed back to chest. “Breathe out. Stay calm.”

“I’m fine,” Erik frowned, turning his face only slightly towards Charles, without opening his eyes. 

“You won’t be in a minute,” Charles replied, locking his arms around Erik’s waist. The man’s hands fell on Charles’ thighs, strong fingers gripping the denim. 

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to show you something special,” Charles whispered, looking at Baskerville over the curve of Erik’s cheekbone. The hounds’ eyes glowed, incandescent. “Remember, Erik: reality is perception and perception is illusion. If I control your perception, I control your reality. Do you trust me?”

Erik’s back was tense against his chest, the slope of those broad shoulders stiff; but Erik nodded. It was true, too, the idiot. 

“I told you once I have disassociated my rational mind from my irrational impulses, from my instincts. I told you they were separate parts of my psyche, as alien one to the other as a master to its pet.”

Erik nodded. 

“Open your eyes,” Charles breathed into his ear. 

He could tell the moment Erik did, because his whole body grew taut as a bowstring. He pressed back, as if hoping to get away from Baskerville by sinking into Charles’ chest. The hound looked as diabolical as ever, fur as black as the void, eyes like fire. He was immense, bigger than any dog or wolf.

“Hush,” Charles said, feeling the way Erik’s breath sped with panic, narrow chest rising quickly. His hands were trembling on Charles’ thighs. “He won’t hurt you. He _likes_ you.”

Baskerville’s head ducked as he inched forward, closer. Erik’s whole body began to shake, as if gripped by some sort of religious terror. The hound stopped, almond-shaped eyes glowing as he dipped his head and licked at Erik’s hand. The man flinched violently, jerking it away. 

Baskerville moved forward again, sitting down between Erik’s legs and resting a paw on top of his right thigh. 

“How are you doings this?” Erik’s voice sounded strangled. 

“I told you. Reality is perception and perception is illusion. If I tell your mind that Baskerville is there, your mind will tell your senses that Baskerville is there.”

Erik stilled. “Baskerville?” he let out a short, breathless laugh. “You named it Baskerville?”

“It’s appropriate,” Charles protested. 

Erik nodded slowly. His hand, which ad jerked to his own stomach and gripped Charles’ wrist, moved slowly over to Baskerville’s head. The hound obligingly tilted it, so the silk-soft fur brushed Erik’s questing fingertips. The man paused, and then, with renewed courage, reached out and stroked the hounds; forehead, a long caress, testing, cautious. The hound butted against his palm, demanding more contact. 

Erik laughed again, stroking the long ears and down the jaw to the neck, up the snout to nose and up the slope between the eyes, to the forehead again. 

“I told you he liked you.”

“What is he?” Erik breathed, fascinated. “Is he really you? Your instincts?”

“Yes. All of them. He’s rather, shall we say, _mercurial_. But he means well enough, most of the time.”

Erik was entranced, now both hands traveling over the hounds; head, stroking, scratching. Baskerville was delighted, even going as far as licking the underside of a wrist when it ventured near his snout. Charles arched brow. 

“He’ll go with you,” he said, releasing Erik’s waist to lean back on his hands. Erik twisted around to look at him, still half of his attention stuck on the hound. “In the mission, I mean. Baskerville will see you don’t make any stupid mistakes, and he’ll keep you safe. Backup, if you will.”

The man turned now fully to him, laughing like a boy when the hound surged up and forward to put his paws on both of his thighs and sniff at the small hollow beneath his ear with his scent was strongest. 

“But how? You’d have to come with me.”

“No. He’ll anchor to your mind. He can do that easily.”

“So you’ll send a part of your mind to guard me?” Erik grinned. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Charles arched a brow. “I only do it because I’m used to your horrid methods already. I don’t feel like training another handler to my specific needs.”

Erik laughed sincerely, patting Charles’ thigh before he rose from the bed. Baskerville butted his head against his thigh until Erik reached down and scratched behind his ear. Charles pulled a face and let himself fall back on the bed. 

“Are you sure it’s alright?” Erik asked, genuinely concerned. 

Charles waved a hand at him. 

“Off you go now, there’s a lad.”

Erik grinned at him and left. Baskerville, grinning as if he’d caught a cat between his fangs, passed through the wall, much to Erik’s delight. 

Charles lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, and smiled. 

_Showoff._


	12. Chapter 12

Erik woke from a sleep so deep he was disoriented. He lay on his side on the bed in the motel, and for the first time in a log while he was not tangled messily in his sheets. He’d slept easily. A novelty in itself. 

Another novelty he soon remembered was Baskerville. 

The hound, big enough to take at least half of the available space, shared the bed with him, great heavy head settled on his stomach. He was very warm, and his fur was very soft. Erik rested his hand on the creatures’ forehead and shifted, changing the position go his legs. The hound grumbled, seemingly disturbed by the movement, and crawled closer to press its long warm flank to Erik’s right leg. 

Erik turned his face to the window. The grey light of dawn crept reluctantly through the blinds, cold, to paint stripes in black and white across the cheap carpeting of the floor. Erik inhaled deeply, wincing at the scent of the room’s ambient perfume. Baskerville made a sound of distaste down low in his throat, jaw working against Erik’s stomach. 

“Charles would love it here, wouldn’t he,” Erik mumbled. Baskerville snorted. He shifted again, crawling closer up to rest his head on Erik’s chest instead, letting it fall sideways. 

Erik had absolutely no idea what do think. Baskerville was as demanding of affection and attention as Charles was cold and distant. It probably would have made sense to someone versed in the convoluted workings of psychology, but to Erik such a field was obscure at best. He thought, sometimes, that he caught a glimpse of Charles’ thoughts that would allow him to understand, and just as he thought comprehension within reach the thread unraveled and he was again left in darkness. 

It had to mean something, though, that Baskerville liked to sleep with his head pillowed on one or other of Erik’s limbs. 

Baskerville was—cuddly. It was really the only word Erik could adjudicate to him at the moment. He was, of course, also unnecessarily big, and surprisingly heavy for something that—wasn’t even there. Yet when he pressed down on the hound’s forehead, his fingertips sank into fur, down to hide stretched over taut muscle and hard bone. If Baskerville was a lie his mind was telling his senses, it was a very well crafted lie. 

Then again the alternative was to believe Charles really _did_ have a familiar hell hound that materialized at will and was unnervingly intelligent. 

Unlikely, Erik had to concede. He moved his hand to scratch absently behind Baskerville’s ear. The hound snuffled contentedly. The wave of hot air from his breath washed over Erik’s face, odorless but tangible. In any and all ways that mattered, Baskerville was most certainly there in the room with him. He wondered if Charles could see through the hounds’ eyes, and was even now watching him, studying him. 

Often, Erik felt like Charles was trying to untangle him as if he were a puzzling knot. He couldn’t quite understand what Charles would find so fascinating about him. There was of course the chance he was only observing in the chances of finding the one weakness that would bring him to his knees—Charles seemed the type—but he would not have had to look for very long, if that was the case. 

Post traumatic stress disorder manifesting heavily on amnesia and psychosomatically-induced nosebleeds and black-outs.

Erik _hated_ doctors. 

He shifted again and brought up his left arm to stare at the numbers imprinted in his skin. He wished he knew what they meant. With a weary sigh, he let it fall back on the bed. Baskerville’s eyes, glowing like embers in the dim light, followed the movement. Then he lifted his head, yawning with a jaw full of disturbingly long, serrated fangs, more reptile than dog by any measure of the imagination—and shifted to tuck his head between Erik’s torso and arm, breathing hostly into Erik’s armpit. 

Erik made a sound of protest and moved back. The hound ignored him, moving back in. Erik shrugged and settled, resigned. He caught a movement down by his feet and raised his head. Baskerville’s tail-end was flopping inconspicuously. 

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, dropping his head back to the pillow. 

_Cuddly._  
Erik relaxed and reached out, settling his senses to the song of the metal around him for comfort. The bed he was lying on was wooden, but the door was and the table and chairs were all metal, like the window frame. Further, deeper, he could feel the humming of the old beaten metal of the pipes running the walls—water, gas, electricity. They all sung different melodies. 

Baskerville moved, setting his head on Erik’s shoulder instead, one of those disquieting red eyes fixed on him. 

Erik rubbed sleep from his eyes and scratched absently at the tickle of Baskervilles’ fur against his chest. His fingers bumped the raised skin of a scar, long and jagged across his right side from nipple to hipbone. He traced it, inattentively, recognizing its familiar shape and the dull sensation of the tissue, hating it for all he didn’t know how he’d gotten it. 

Sleep was dragging him under again. It was still early; he had several hours before he was expected to report for duty. He stretched out his legs and closed his eyes, intending to get some more rest. 

Baskerville’s head came up, ears swiveling up, alert. Erik tensed with understanding; Baskerville had sensed something he himself could not yet feel. He slipped out of the bed with a murmur of cotton on skin, crouching to retrieve his weapon from beneath is pillow before he crossed the room to stand by the door. Baskerville had risen now to his impressive height, red eyes aglow. 

_What is it?_ Erik wondered, gritting his teeth. Baskerville’s eyes pinned him to his spot, sharp with understanding. He’d heard that—somehow he’d heard what Erik had thought. Erik realized suddenly he could _communicate_ with the hound.

 _Someone’s coming_ , he thought, trying to arrange his mind clearly to be easily understood. Baskerville’s head lowered and rose; a nod. _Do they mean me harm?_

A pause. Another nod. Baskerville got off the bed, paws silent, and crossed slowly to Erik’s side, where he pressed his nose, cold and damp, to Erik’s temple—before vanishing. Erik started, nearly loosening his grip on his gun with shock. Just then there was a knock on the door. A breath of cold like winter breeze against his mind. Frost?

Erik stood and threw out his senses, mapping out the intricate curving line of the choker at Frost’s throat, and the delicate and simple collar Sebastian Shaw wore. 

He was stunned enough to throw the door open to welcome them in without giving one thought to his lack of clothing. Frost gave him a cold once-over, appreciative for all she had no interest in him beyond business, and turned away. 

Shaw arched his brows. 

“Is this how you receive all your superior officers, Erik?”

“Ah, no, sir. I apologize. I wasn’t expecting a revision.”

“What were you expecting?” Shaw gestured down at the gun in Erik’s hands, which the soldier promptly settled on the table, shrugging. He remembered Baskerville’s nod; _they mean you harm_. He could believe it all too easily from Frost. 

He shrugged as he picked up his jeans and pulled them on, closing zipper and snap with his gift while he put on a shirt. 

“Habit, sir.”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting jumpy, soldier,” Shaw shrugged off his coat and folded it over the back of a chair. 

“Not at all,” Erik replied, tense. “I’m perfectly in control, sir.”

“Hm,” Shaw smiled, that strangely sickeningly sweet smile of his that put Erik so on edge. He’d never liked Shaw, ever since he could remember. “This isn’t a revision, Erik. We’re just—concerned about you, that’s all.”

“I’m doing well, sir,” said Erik, who did not take well to open signs of uninvited concern. Shaw thought of himself as paternal, which was just disgusting to Erik, for some reason he could only half begin to comprehend. The thought of Shaw coupled with the thought of ‘father’ made Erik’s stomach turn. 

“Yes, we can tell,” Shaw smiled, spread his hands. Frost sat herself in one of the chairs, very evidently not appreciating the cheapness of the room. 

“So,” Erik turned his head a fraction, bemused. “Your concern, sir?”

“Erik, it’s come to my attention that you’ve grown, shall we say, _attached_ , to Mr. Xavier?”

Erik stiffened. “I have it under control.”

“See, I worry that you don’t.”

“I’m not lying to you,” Erik said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t think you are, Erik,” Shaw said soothingly. “Not consciously at least,” he added after a pause. 

Erik felt the cold again, like a vile slithering tendril against his thoughts—and, abruptly, he felt Baskerville’s breath against his wrist, and the cold disappeared as if a window had been closed. Erik could feel Frost’s eyes on the back of his neck, drilling into him like diamonds, and he forced himself not to turn. He felt, suddenly, like it was important that he not let know he could tell she was trying to enter his mind. 

He didn’t glance down to where he knew Baskerville was standing, pressing up against him, either. He didn’t know why, but he knew Baskerville would keep him safe, where Frost would harm him. There was no rational explanation for it—he trusted Baskerville, somehow. 

“There’s also the fact he’s your subordinate,” Shaw continued. “You can’t very well have a relationship with someone beneath you.”

The choice of words rattled Erik. It was something Shaw said often enough. Erik had never liked it. Baskerville pressed closer to him, soaking his hip in warmth. Only he was aware of the hounds’ existence and he knew, instinctively, that he must not let Frost know. 

“I wouldn’t force myself on him,” he said, making an effort to stay calm. He felt—ambushed. 

“We know that, son,” Shaw waved a hand. “But I understand Xavier can be very frustrating, and I wouldn’t want you to snap at him on account of unfulfilled—urges.”

Erik could have choked on his next breath. Frost was prodding at his mind again. Erik had the motion of Baskerville’s low growl, like a warning, the build-up to a storm of brutal proportions. 

_Calm_ , he thought distinctly, remembering Charles words. Mercurial. _Stay calm._

He thought Baskerville might have huffed. 

“Erik, we just want to help you, like we always do ever since your accident,” Shaw smiled. “You don’t have to fight Emma. You know she’s only helping you.”

 _Lies_ , Erik thought, very clearly, and clenched his fists. Trapped. He was trapped. He couldn’t overpower Shaw and couldn’t fight Frost. Baskerville could shield him, clearly, but fight against Frost and all the power she could bring to bear—not even Charles could do that, and the thought of encouraging him to try chilled Erik to the bone. If Frost rose up against Charles and hurt him because of Erik, he’d never forgive himself. 

Erik jerked. 

“—down, Erik, it’s alright.”

“What?” Erik frowned. Something tickled his upper lip; he reached up and swiped his thumb over it. It came away bloody. Appalled, he stumbled to the bathroom and washed his face. As he rose he caught a glimpse of black in the mirror behind him; Baskerville’s eyes bright like red stars, long fangs bared and gleaming. 

“It’s alright,” Shaw said, coming into the cramped bathroom and offering him a towel. His hand came to rest comfortably in Erik’s shoulder, fatherly. “We know how it is, son. But you’re alright now.”

“I,” Erik blinked, disoriented. “Yes? I think I am. Were you—I blacked out. What did you say?”

“We were talking about the mission,” Shaw smiled. “It got pushed back to the evening, I’m sorry to say. That’s why we came to see you, Erik. Remember?”

“Right,” Erik replied faintly, dizzy. “That’s alright. It’s no problem. I’ll handle it.”

“We know,” Shaw squeezed his arm. “We’ll let ourselves out. Get some sleep.”

Erik nodded vaguely, looking down at the towel in his hands, tainted faintly pink. He frowned at it as he heard the door close. Another drop of blood rolled down his lip, to his chin, and dripped down to the back of his hand, stark red against the pale skin. 

Baskerville materialized in front of him, outside the bathroom, eyes alight. 

“What just happened?” Erik murmured. 

Baskerville’s hackles rose, growling with a voice so deep it rumbled, it seemed, in Erik’s belly. Erik felt fear begin to blacken the edges of his vision. Baskerville was furious. 

“Stop,” he mumbled, staggering to grip the door frame. “Charles—“

Erik watched in horror as Baskerville became a creature made of fire, flames licking up his frame like a match had been thrown at him and caught on fur coated in oil. His eyes were like fresh-spilled blood. Erik’ breath hitched. A splinter pierced his skin when he slid down to his knees, heart beating furiously in his throat. Baskerville opened his jaws, white gleaming fangs and a tongue pink as raw flesh—

Suddenly, he remembered. Frost had issues a command— _forget_. A blanket order. But beneath that was another: distrust Charles Xavier. Turn away from him. 

Baskerville dissolved into smoke. Erik released the doorframe, shakily looking at the palm of his hand. He could see the edge of the splinter there, nestled in the long curving line of his life. He swallowed the nausea. There was a small, soft sigh and Baskerville reappeared, fur and flesh again, ears flattened to his skull. He went down to the floor and crawled closer, the very picture of discontent and shame. 

“I’m fine,” Erik said dully. “How long has she been doing this to me?”

Baskerville’s eyes flicked away. A faint echo of a thought told Erik he didn’t know. 

“Why?” he asked instead, rising shakily to go to the bed and dig in the bedside drawer for the complimentary sewing kit. He found a needle and started digging out the splinter, almost violently. He had to pause to take a deep breath. Baskerville sat up, regal and intimidating, eyes banked to a dull glow. He seemed like he was regretting something. 

Erik gripped the needle in his closed fist. 

“You let her do that to me,” he murmured, gritting his jaw. “Why? I thought you were supposed to _protect_ me.”

Baskerville’s ears twitched. He got up and nosed at Erik’s wounded hand, warm humid breath caressing the abused skin. It stung, but no more than the betrayal he’s just been submitted to. _Oh._

“You wanted me to know,” he closed his eyes. “The two f you. You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

Baskerville settled his head on Erik’s knee, ears flopping sadly down. 

“And I’m talking to an illusion,” Erik growled bitterly, shoving Baskerville away. The hound whined, but got up and curled miserably at the other end of the room. Unwilling, it seemed, to leave Erik alone and unshielded, but wounded by the man’s anger. 

Erik grunted in frustration and renewed his attempts to fish out the splinter, finally succeeding after a truly ridiculous amount of time. The needle bent in on itself under the force of his irritation, but he breathed in and straightened it out. He snapped his eyes over to where Baskerville was curled on the floor against the wall, looking dejected. 

“And what am I supposed to do with this knowledge now?” he ground out, getting up to pace restlessly. Baskerville gathered himself into an even tighter ball, as if a creature of his size could hope to make itself inconspicuous. Erik stilled, and turned around to face the hound, enraged. 

“Can Charles hear me? Does he know what you did? Did he put you up to it?”

Baskerville looked even more miserable. Erik couldn’t hold back a breathless, disbelieving laugh. 

“You—you act on your own, is that it? An alien entity from—“

He shook his head, the enormity of it impossible to grasp. He turned away instead, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He dropped his head to his hands, elbows braced on his knees. 

“He wasn’t just teasing me, then, when he mentioned the possibility of brain damage. This is brain damage—what she does to me. Isn’t it?”

He dropped his hands tiredly and faced the hound. The creature, huddled against the wall as far from Erik, whined pitifully. Erik dragged himself to his feet and dropped against the wall next to him, laying his hand gently on the hound’s head. The animal crowded closer, resting his head on Erik’s thigh, ears down. 

Erik couldn’t make sense of it all. Why would Frost and Shaw make him forget things? Ever since he’d woken up in that hospital bed six years before, he’d always had black-outs, entire fragments of days missing like books gone from a shelf. He’d woken up a blank slate, _tabula rasa_ , no memories at all. Since then he’d regained only very little of who he was. He had a file, kept strictly up to date by the military, that told him who he was, spoke of battles and decorations and heroic acts. 

Told him of a childhood easy and calm, that did not by any measure of the imagination match the topography of his body, which told instead the story of a sadist and a blade. 

He didn’t know who he was. Erik Lehnsherr was just a name, as alien to him as any other, as alien as the face in his mirror when he shaved every morning and the many scars that criss-crossed his skin. Everything he knew of himself, he’d discovered as he went along during the last six years. All of the data contained in the file he had given Charles was data, hard facts, things he’d read, the biography of a man he didn’t know. 

Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw had come to him shortly after he’d waken, blank and unwritten, and had taken him into their organization. A shelter. A home. He didn’t agree with all of their viewpoints and methods, but he believed in the mission they preached—a world safe of violence and discrimination, a safe haven for the innocent. It resonated with him, that goal—a safe place, where helpless children would not be threatened. 

Sometimes he woke, a scream strangled in his throat, and he could not remember the nightmare but he remembered a voice, soft and cool against his ear, and a room painted red with blood. 

He shook his head. 

He got up, ignoring Baskervilles’ whine, and took a long shower. He usually took four-0minute regimented military showers, but his head was spinning, and he felt like he needed the blurriness of the steam-clogged bathroom, to match the state of his mind. 

Even then, hours later, he could still not begin to process it. It was as though he met with a wall, a block, in his own mind, which made it impossible to understand why anyone would do this to someone else. He told himself over and over that it made no sense for anyone to deprive him of his past—what would be the point? Erik was no-one important. _It made no sense._

When the time to carry on his mission rolled around, he felt unsteady and uncertain, off-balance. 

He checked his guns twice, even though he could feel they were perfectly in order, well-oiled, clean of debris of dust that might impede their correct functioning. He couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was wrong, like the planet had suddenly tilted out of its axis and the floor beneath Erik’s feet was not at the angle it should be. 

There was nothing for it. He had to complete this mission. And then—then what? Go back to base. To Frost and Shaw and their little twisting mind-games, running laps around him without him ever knowing it. Erik felt his teeth gritting at the thought. And play the timid kitten to them? He couldn’t stomach it. He wasn’t made for diplomacy and cleverness, he was made for full frontal attack and violence. How was he going to face Frost and not want to rip her apart, not have his mind telegraphing how much she disgusted him?

Unless.

He turned from his bathroom mirror to look through the doorway out into the room. Baskerville lay dozing on his bed, stretched out huge and black as pits, powerful chest rising as he seemingly slumbered. A moment of Erik’s attention had his eyes snapping open, alert. 

This was, on some measure, if only by a stretch of the imagination, Charles. Here was a half of Charles’ mind, alien and violent and instinctive, dispatched to guard him like a shield. Erik didn’t know why he’d gone to Charles for protection before leaving; in all senses Charles was helpless, physically weak and untrained, undisciplined, a wild card. Impossible to control on all accounts. 

And yet, this.

“He knows something,” he told the hound, a murmur that couldn’t carry across the room, and yet the animal’s ears twitched to attention. Erik pinned him with his eyes. “You won’t hurt me.”

The thread of it all began to form in his mind, shimmering like a wet spider-web in sunlight, fractured but recognizable like the sight of his face in a shattered mirror. 

Instinct and logic, disassociated and alienated. All natural instincts emptied into a vessel separate from the main body of character. Charles, cold and clinical; Baskerville, warm and demanding. Charles’ chest warm against his back—Baskerville’s head resting against his shoulder as they slept. 

Erik exhaled slowly, a long, shaky breath. 

“You want me,” he said, grinning. Baskerville’s ears fell down. Erik laughed, a long peel of laughter bubbling up from his belly, like light dispelling his anxiety. “You _like_ me, don’t you?”

Baskerville made a low whining sound, of disgruntlement. Erik came out of the bathroom and crouched by the bed, gripping the hound’s left ear and tugging at it. 

“All this time you’ve been touching me, it was you,” he laughed. “All those little tickles against my jaw and my neck, against the small of my back and my thigh. I thought I was jumpy because of my trauma, you stupid animal, you made m thought I was relapsing.”

The hound made a sound of protesting, working his jaws so it undulated in the air between them. He was ridiculously expressive. As open in his responses as Charles was closed off on his. 

“That cold bastard,” Erik said fondly, tugging at the creature’s ear until it twitched away from his fingers. “He’s never going to give me one inch of space. Whatever you want from me, the logical part of Charles’ brain overrules. What am I going to do with you two?”

Baskerville’s tongue lapped out and licked the underside of his wrist. Erik arched a brow and hooked his thumb on the hound’s lower jaw, beneath the tongue, between two wickedly curving fangs. Baskerville blinked and tried to dislodge the digit with his tongue, but no success. Erik grinned. The hound batted at his arm with a huge paw, whining. 

It was incredible. Erik could feel the wetness of the saliva against his thumb and the warmth and humidity of breath fanning over his hand and wrist. He could feel the strong velvety muscle of the tongue pushing at his thumb, insistent and flexible. 

He arched his brows, “Can Charles do that with his tongue?”

Baskerville’s blood-red eyes fixed on him. The jaw closed over his thumb, sharp upper fangs grazing his skin; a warning. Erik nodded and withdrew, wiping his thumb on the side of his thigh, before he realized he didn’t need to. He raised his hand and examined it closely in the light spilling from the bathroom. The spots at the base of his thumb where the two bottom fangs had rubbed against him were reddened. 

If Baskerville was an illusion, not even Frost could hope to equal its excellence. 

He was jarred out of that thought by his phone vibrating with a text message. He strode over to the table and picked it up. 

An address. He snapped it close and slid it into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, making quick work of gathering his pistols and arming himself before stepping out. Baskerville joined him, riding shotgun in his car as if he belonged there. 

This was an extraction, which meant Erik had to kill the existing witnesses that could hope to identify his agent, and find and remove the agent from his undercover environment as quickly and with as little bodily damage to the agent as possible. The address turned out to be a three-floor house in a quiet little neighborhood just outside the city. 

Erik hated this sort of set-ups. Quiet places meant his choice method of intervention—as much violence as possible in short and concise bursts to efficiently silence the threats—would be heard immediately. People would panic and call the police. It shortened his window of opportunity drastically. It would have to be a stab-job; in and out. 

Baskerville yawned dramatically, licking his chops. Erik turned slowly to him, considering his abilities, his range, the possibilities that he could be anywhere near this lucky. He got out of the car and into the cool evening breeze, closing the door softly behind himself. 

His own gun was always silenced, of course, and he wouldn’t let any other guns fire because he couldn’t afford to risk the agent being hurt. But even then, attracting attention in a place like this was unpleasantly easy. It was late enough that most of the houses in the periphery had gone dark and silent for the night. But Erik had not lived this long as a secret agent because he trusted his luck—not that he had any to trust in, anyway. 

Erik glanced down at Baskerville, sitting placidly at his side. The hound tilted his head up to look at Erik, eyes glowing like stars in the gloom. Erik reached to the back of his ants and removed his modified Desert Eagle, gracing the hound with a crooked grin. 

He made a motioning circle with his left hand, “You cover the back?”

Baskerville bared his long serrated fangs, hackles rising, eyes aglow with madness the likes of which Erik could never hope to comprehend. 

Erik crossed the street to the house and flattened himself along the wall beside the door. Deep even breaths to clam his racing heart and balance himself. Count to five heartbeats. Stealth until otherwise required. 

He unlocked the front door and slipped inside, quiet as a shadow, covering ground with his gun as he threw out his senses and gripped all the metal available. His awareness slid along pipes and fixtures, spider-webbing out into a net of silver threads; he counted a dozen people in this house; three of those were on the second floor, one alone and two a short distance away next to each other. A captive and guards.

Erik veered away from the front hall and moved swiftly up the stairs, intending to secure his agent before he took down the witnesses. The stairs ended right into the corridor, offering no cover out of which he could take a shot and remain hidden, but that was fine. He reached into the metal of their guns and interrupted the mechanism, then rounded the corner and put a bullet in each of their skulls. No time to ascertain where he’d been heard, or the sound of the bodies hitting the floor had given him away. He rushed to the door, unlocked it and stormed inside. 

Tied to a chair and beaten bloody was Ororo Munroe. Ties, not cuffs, fuck. He dropped the gun to levitate next to his head and yanked his knife from his boot, making fast work of the ropes. Ororo’s head lolled; she was dead weight, he’d have to carry her. With ten hostiles below to take care of, too. 

“Ororo,” he murmured, cradling her head carefully. They’d been at this for a while, goddamnit. “Ororo, I need you to wake up now.”

Her eyes fluttered open; the pupils were huge, unfocused. They’d drugged her to the gills too, for added enjoyment. At least her clothes were still on. He went to put an arm beneath her shoulder and found it grotesquely dislocated. Fuck. He glanced down; her right ankle was at an angle to ankle should bend at. She would not be walking out of here, either with his help or on her own power. 

He let her fall back to the chair. Taking her with him right now was out of the question. Wipe out the hostiles, then take her down to his car. He snatched his gun from the air at the side of his head and stalked back to the stairs, careful not to be surprised by a wondering guard. The corridor was clear. The stairs were clear. His senses told him the hall was clear was well. 

Fine. Maybe they were all having a happy little group meal in the kitchen while his agent bled slowly in a small dimly lit room upstairs. Erik gritted his teeth. 

Erik raced quietly down the stairs. Just as he hit the landing one of the hostiles rounded a corner and spotted him. Erik put a bullet in him, but the cry was given; the remaining nine enemies began to move, quickly and efficiently taking cover behind assorted furniture. Erik found the muzzle of the guns aimed at him and collapsed them in on themselves. 

Five guns exploded as the triggers were pulled and the igniting gases were trapped in the cannons, backfiring into their owner’s faces. None of these wounds was fatal, but certainly incapacitating. That left four perfectly able well-trained hostiles to silence. Erik dived behind a couch just in case, even though none of the weapons but his own was functional. Better not take risks. 

He counted to three, taking deep even breaths. Then he took his other gun, one in each hand, and braced himself in case he was hit by something. He felt it before he saw it or heard it, a small little metal cylinder the size of a finger. Had he not caught it with his gift, it would have hit the back of his head, impressively well aimed. He brought it around to study it, puzzled. 

It detonated. 

It wasn’t and explosion, or even a concussion grenade—it was a powder grenade loaded with inhibiting drugs. 

Fuck. _Fuck._

Erik crashed to his knees, stunned by the abrupt disappearance of his metal-awareness, disoriented like the world had tilted beneath his feet and the floor had turned the ceiling. He felt deaf, blind and mute. He was asphyxiating, unable to breath, unable to move, slow and lagging—

Someone stepped behind him and gripped his hair. Erik twisted like a snake, lashing out with his knife, hitting blindly but striking true. When he opened his eyes blood black and thick as tar was spilling from the wound in his attacker’s belly. He’d hit the liver. Erik slashed his knife across the man’s throat, slitting it, and staggered to his feet. 

His senses were slowly returning to him, compensating for the debilitating loss of his gift. The drug would pass, all he needed was to not lose it right then and there. The next man came at him with a knife; Erik dodged, slid his blade along the delicate inner wrist severing tendons and opening veins, then came in close and sank his blade into the eye socket before wrenching it out. Blood spilled forth; the man went down, and Erik whipped around to the next attacker, whom he met with a kick to the groin, a punch to solar plexus and a fist to the throat. 

Three down. 

The next man met Erik with a vicious kick to the side. Erik clenched his muscles and danced with it, lessening the blow to his ribs and trying to move closer, but this one knew what he was doing, and moved away quickly, shifting his grip on a long hunting knife. 

Erik felt adrenalin like quicksilver in his veins, throwing everything into sharp relief. He advanced; kick, lunge, kick, dodged a blade, moved to the side to avoid the backturn, dropped to a knew and sank his knife into the man’s inner thigh, dragging it viciously down through muscle and fat and tendon to the knee. A hot spray of arterial blood painted his face. 

Four down—five to go. 

Two of those had rallied and found un-jammed guns. Erik threw himself on the floor behind the couch, gripping his guns and hoping for an opening. It came; one of the men needed to reload. It forced Erik to run the risk of getting shot in the head when he popped up, but he was one of the best marksmen in Division, trained to be a sniper—if he didn’t get killed, he’d take one of them down at least. 

He took the shot, drooping one of the men with a bullet-hole between the eyes. Then he crawled to the other side of the couch and kicked over the small end table, shattering a vase. Bullets rained around that end; Erik threw himself on the floor at the other one and took the shoot. 

Six down, three left. Those three were keeping well back, sheltered in the kitchen. Without his powers Erik had no way of ascertaining their location, except that he hadn’t seen them stroll by, and it left him feeling unbalanced. 

He relied too much on his gifts, of course, he’d learned to fight with them, had had them at his disposal his whole life. It was exactly like abruptly being plunged in ink-dark water; he’s lost a sense, and the loss of it was harsh. 

A soft noise behind him had him whirling around, pistol in hand. 

The man was there, in the perfect position to kill Erik, but his shotgun hung from nerveless fingers. As Erik watched, a deep tremor run up and down his frame, almost a convulsion. 

Bright-red blood began flowing profusely from his nostrils. With one last choking noise, the man fell to his knees and forward flat on his face. 

Behind him, Baskerville stood cast in flame, eyes red-gold. Half-fire, half-dog, all nightmare. 

Erik swallowed. “The other two?”

Baskerville gave him what could only be described as a smug look. Erik nodded at him and ran up the stairs to gather Ororo into his arms. He laid her down carefully in his back seat and called to Division to get a clean-up team in this location as soon as possible. Then he steered the car into the road and started the hour-and-a-half long trip to base. 

Baskerville sat in the seat next to him, blinking sleepily. 

Everything was not perfect. Ororo was hurt, and Erik’s gift was momentarily blocked, and he still had to go back to Division and pretend in front of Shaw and Frost that he was their loyal lapdog. He still didn’t know how he was going to pull that off. Erik had many talents; diplomacy was not one of them. 

He would probably have to ask Charles to help him. He doubted the telepath would refuse—in fact, he doubted whether he’d even have to ask. He glanced at Baskerville. The hound was swaying, like lulled onto sleep by the rocking motion of the moving car. 

Baskerville might like Erik enough to kill men in horribly painful ways form the inside out for him—charming—but that did not by any means herald any desire on Charles’ part. Of course, other things did hint at it—Erik was a spy, he could read body language.

He knew Charles wanted to have him, he just didn’t know how to transform that possessiveness into sexual impulse. He wasn’t content with the idea of letting it rest, either; Erik was a man of decisions, he dealt with uncertainty if he had to but avoided it whenever possible. He could sit and wait for years and still Charles would twist himself in corkscrew turns trying to deny he wanted Erik, because all the telepath could see down that road was an weakness to be exploited against him.

Of course there was one more thing. Frost and Shaw had taken the trouble of coming all the way out to the city with the express intention to forbid Erik from even considering touching Charles. It was micromanaging, and it made Erik sick. It was also an attempt to keep him away from the only telepath in range that could undo whatever Frost had done to Erik, and was more than willing. 

He glanced at Baskerville. The hound made a disgruntled sound of discomfort and flopped down on the floor of the car, grumbling. 

Erik drummed his fingertips on the leather of the wheel. 

The possibility of letting things unfold as they may was ludicrous. He’d tried that before, that was what he’d been doing, and it had culminated in Charles getting spooked like a skittish foal when Erik had leaned over him on his bed. He wondered if Charles though him too stupid to be aware of it. Probably. Charles thought everyone was stupider than he was. 

He could always approach this as a mission. Erik had been trained in seduction, naturally, all spies were. They key to it was knowing what the mark wanted, and giving it to them. The problem was what Charles seemed to want was small feminine girls, which was rather complicated for Erik to pull off. 

_Small feminine girls_ , he mused, taking the exit to the highway. When in the mood, Charles was flirtatious; but he only paid attention to the girls in the compound that were delicate-looking, smaller than him, and moved elegantly. He’d flirted with Katherine Pryde and paid no attention to Rogue. Why? Because Rogue wasn’t as delicate. 

Charles liked feminine girls. Erik knew he was a creature of extremes. He’d argued that he was _mostly_ heterosexual, so what caught his eye on a man like Erik? He was clearly the other end of the spectrum from _delicate_. Well, unless you meant to discuss his mental health. 

“Is that it?” he muttered, frowning. Baskerville grumbled but opened his eyes to sleepy slits, paying attention. “He likes women he can get on top and men—“ 

Suddenly he understood. He formed a list in his head of the things Charles seemed to like about him; the height difference, Erik’s broad shoulders, his strong back, his gift, the purposeful and economic way he moved. These were the things Charles had told him, hinting and teasing, yes, but he’d _told_ him. The others he could deduce. The suit. The way he didn’t mind Erik invading his personal space even though he sworn otherwise. 

Charles was powerful. Baskerville was as solid and visible here five miles away as he was in the Division compound. There couldn’t be a lot of people out there who could hope to be stronger than Charles, and he knew it. He took advantage of it with the lack of remorse of the true sociopath. 

Erik knew this sort of pattern; it happened often enough in men in the military who occupied top ranks and had entire battalions at their orders. So much power became wearisome; in bed, they sometimes became the passive partners, wanting to give up control. Erik had killed enough man taking advantage of that that the thought of it came easily. Charles was probably, realistically, on par with Frost in power. That was a lot of power, but only telepathic; in physical strength he couldn’t hope to match Erik, and didn’t even try. He’d made Erik pop water bottle caps for him, for God’s sake. 

If that was what Charles wanted, Erik could take the lead. He liked being in charge anyway. 

It was a thought. He could test it. If he was wrong, he’d probably get himself killed. It wasn’t like Charles would hesitate to murder him if he thought Erik was taking liberties. Baskerville would whine about it, probably, but Charles obviously didn’t pay all that much attention to what Baskerville wanted; despite being the embodiment of the majority of Charles’ destructive power, the hound was not his only weapon. Cold logic could be just as deadly as unbridled emotion. 

“So the options are,” Erik said quietly to himself, lifting his fingers from the wheel to count them. “either he lobotomizes me, or he lets me fuck him.”

A moment of silence. 

He looked down at the hound, found the beast’s eyes were glowing like red stars. 

“What do you say are my chances, fifty-fifty?” 

Baskerville’s left ear dropped down. 

“Sixty-forty for painful death?” 

Another droop. 

“Thirty-seventy? Twenty-eighty. Right.” 

He took a deep breath and exhaled, exasperated. He could have wanted to bed any of the soft, nice girls in the compound, but no, he had to go for the sociopathic murdering telepath. Why did these things happen to him? Why did his options have to split between having rough sex and ending up in vegetative state? Maybe he _was_ brain damaged. 

“Fine,” he bit out. “I’ll take those odds.” 

Baskerville snorted. 

“Shut up. You better help me, if he attacks me I’m throwing you under his wheels first.” 

Baskerville groused moodily and settled in to nap, turning his head away from Erik.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so sorry I have been so absent of everything lately. I'm editing an original novel and going back and forth to the farm and doing shit, but I really just have no excuse not to answer your unbelievably kind comments. I'm just a terrible person.
> 
> I'm so sorry. I'll try to be better, I swear. 
> 
> Also uh. Porn. Sorry about that.

Upon arrival to base, Erik had to rather ungracefully submit himself to a myriad of diagnostic tests aiming to either determine his general state of health or, most likely, drive him absolutely insane.

It was hypothesized that the cause of Erik’s dulled gift—he still had the ability to feel the metal but could not manipulated it—was the consequence of the inhalation of an untested drug. The same drug had been administered to Ororo via injection, creating a disquieting set of symptoms the doctors did not yet know how to treat. 

With her extensive bodily injures indicating a prolonged bout of torture, it was as yet impossible to determine what effects the drug had precisely. It was evident enough that the drug itself did not provide with somnolence and unawareness of environment or, at the least, did not do so when inhaled. 

If anything, Erik was even more alert. 

The only logical explanation was that Ororo had been given another drug to incapacitate her. The result of this was she was nearly unresponsive. However, despite the severity of her injuries and the uncertainty caused by the chemicals introduced to her blood, Ororo was deemed stable and on the mend, so Erik felt free to leave her to more capable hands than his own. 

Baskerville had dissolved into smoke the exact moment they had stepped into the base, leaving Erik to fend for himself throughout the medical checks. Erik somewhat resented that, but at the same time he was relieved. When he manifested, Baskerville had a way of occupying most of Erik mind. 

With the stress of the medical tests and the hours trickling by, the adrenaline and excitement of battle and discovery faded. In the low slope of it all, his mind cleared entirely, and facts became obvious. 

With how solid Baskerville had been at such great distance, it was obvious Charles had to be at least a level eight telepath. Frost was a level eight, and she was one of the most powerful telepaths ever recorded; myth said telepaths of ninth level had at some point existed, but the sheer weight of the collective minds of humanity around them had killed them at an early age. Ten was omega-level, and no omega-level telepath had ever been born, or at least had not managed to live long enough to reach the age of full manifestation. 

All mutant abilities were measured against the highest recorded manifestation of a similar gift. On a metal-kinetic chat consisting of ten levels, Erik was on level five. The most powerful metallokinetic ever recorded had lived during the Second World War and been killed by the Nazis at the age of twenty-nine in Germany. Much of his records had been lost, along sadly with his name, but the scientific measurements suggested he might have been able to do things Erik could hardly dream of, like making himself levitate. 

Erik realized now that he didn’t know the full extent of Frosts’ abilities, and that she handled her telepathy in ways diametrically opposite Charles. Where Charles lay low and struck from underfoot, Frost was all about showing her fangs. 

The basic rule of spying: lay low and watch. And that, Erik saw now, was precisely what Charles did all the time. Hide behind the screen of his seemingly guile-less blue eyes, and behind that shy smile he could throw up at will, and pretend he was just a hopeless, timid telepath. All the while beneath the ice, the currents were in ferocious turmoil. Charles was not what he looked like; and he traded on what he looked like, playing his soft complexion and kindly-shaped face, his too-red lips and his cheeks too smooth by half. 

Charles counted on the stereotyped he looks afforded him. Like everyone else, Erik might have fallen for them at first, but had quickly had them smashed in what he felt was a natural progression of events—except it wasn’t. Because if Charles could play everyone else, why would he be incapable of playing Erik? 

No. Charles had _allowed_ Erik to see him. 

Charles, how knew what Frost had done to Erik’s mind and, if Erik knew how Charles’ mind worked at all, _why_ she had done it, had allowed Erik to begin to see through the many veils he wrapped himself in. 

Now all Erik needed to know was _why_. 

It was with this in his mind, turning the matter over and over in his mind, that Erik went back to his room and took a long shower. After dressing, he went by the basement and paid Tony a visit. 

The mechanic was busy soldering something in his workbench, and only gave Erik a vague wave of a hand, focused on his task. Until, that is, Erik strolled over to his desk and yanked a drawer open, stealing the bottle of fifteen year-old Glenlivet and two matching glass tumblers. That got Tony’s attention. 

“Hey!” Stark threw his mask up, affecting a scandalized expression. “That’s my smooch! Buy your own!”

“You’re not supposed to have this, Tony. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Like hell you are! That’s fifteen years old! You have no taste for that shit anyway, I can give you a ten year old Blenders—“

“That’s disgusting and offensive,” said Erik tucking the bottle under his arm. “I do know a bit about liquor, you know.”

“Is that a suit? Are you wearing a suit? You’re wearing a suit. Oh my god, Erik are you fucking someone? You are, aren’t you? _Tell the truth_.”

Erik arched a brow. “I don’t see why I owe you any explanations—“

“You’re wearing a fucking suit!” Tony jumped to his feet, rushing over. “Ok, yeah, totally, take the whiskey, you need to get laid so bad, consider it my gift to humanity, only a good solid fuck can dislodge that stick from your ass—“

“Yes, thank you, Tony,” Erik interrupted dryly, 

“—my other option is surgery—wait hold on, _hold on_ , stop yer horses--“

“I think you got that wrong.”

“Who are you fucking?” demanded the mechanic, unselfconsciously tugging at the lapels of Erik’s suit to straighten the lines of the jacket to perfect order. Tony, Erik knew, was well acquainted with expensive suits. “Who, ok, I need to know because reason, I mean not everyone likes whiskey, I don’t know if you know, a good sweet dame might like wine more. You’ve come to the right place for advice, my young padawan.”

“I didn’t come here for advice,” Erik rolled his eyes, disentangling himself from Tony’s hands. “I just came to commandeer your illegally obtained alcoholic beverage.”

Tony opened his mouth to say something, and then seemed to short-circuit and snapped it shut. His eyes widened. 

“You’re fucking your new operative! I can’t—“

Erik gave the man a grim look that shut him right up. 

“Right. Safe uh, journey, or whatever. Don’t pull a muscle, I know you’re out of practice. Warm up and shit.”

Erik didn’t dignify that with a reply. Something else was bothering him. As much as a loudmouth as he was, Tony was discreet enough when he set his mind to it, so Erik wasn’t concerned that he would tell everyone within hearing about this. Still, it put Erik on edge that the mechanic could tell.

It wasn’t the first time Erik felt like this whenever someone discovered he fancied men. Though it had come rather as a surprise the first time he had felt attracted to one—that he could remember anyway—Erik had never been conflicted regarding the gender of his lovers. When it came to just him and the man he wanted, everything was straightforward and simple. 

But when someone outside the two of them realized, Erik felt his stomach roil. He could have attributed it to simple hypocrisy, of course; he wouldn’t be the first closeted homosexual to have been born, obviously. However, Erik could know little about himself, but he knew this much: he was incapable of holding double standards. It wasn’t even embarrassment that made his belly clench; it was some sort of indefinable, vague concern. 

As if there was danger implied on others knowing he was homosexual. 

Then again, being a spy, Erik figured paranoia was ingrained into his very being. That didn’t mean, however, that he could discard the feeling and proceed as desired. Most of the time in fact, the lingering concern turned him away from prospective lovers. 

Despite the many, perfectly logical and only with difficulty disregarded reasons Erik knew he should not try to initiate anything with Charles, he couldn’t bring himself to walk back to his room. Even if nothing happened between them—unlikely consider this had been brewing—Erik still had a lot of questions that needed answers, and the telepath seemed the only one able and willing to answer them. 

Even though it was well past midnight by the time Erik made it to Charles’ room, he was unsurprised to find the telepath sitting primly at his table, legs crossed, fingers laced. 

Baskerville slept soundly on the bed, stretched out on his side. 

“I can see you mean to get on my good side,” said Charles, amused, when he noticed the suit. 

“I come bearing gifts,” Erik admitted, settling the whiskey and tumblers on the table and pulling out the other chair. 

Charles reached for the bottle, turning it in his hands with a smile. “I must say you are off to a good start. How is your gift?”

“Gone,” answered Erik, unsurprised by the fact Chares knew. Baskerville surely had noticed. “I was drugged. They tell me it’ll fade.”

“Suppression drugs,” Charles wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You might have a nasty headache tomorrow.”

“Anything you can do about that?” Erik asked, smiling, as he opened the bottle and poured on both tumblers. “Seeing as you’ve been tinkering with my head already.”

Charles’ tumbler paused against his lips, and the telepath’s eyes sought Erik’s from beneath his lashes. 

“Ah. So we arrive at this.”

Erik settled back in his chair, sliding his finger slowly around the rim of his glass. “What is wrong with my mind?”

Charles scoffed. “Good God. I would need an age to list all of it.”

Erik gave him a hard look. “Then give me the gist of it.”

Charles took a sip of whiskey and considered it for a moment. “It’s fractured.”

The handler’s teeth ground together. “How?”

The telepath sighed. “I think you know how, Erik. I don’t know if the fracturing is the source of the amnesia or it’s the other way around, but they are certainly related. And before you ask,” he added when Erik opened his mouth. “yes, it was done to you, it did not just spontaneously happen.”

“How long have you known she was—“

“Playing slide-puzzle with your mind?” Charles offered, unsympathetic. “Since the moment I met you. There are always tells, you know. Telepathic manipulation leaves trails.”

Erik finished his glass and poured himself more whiskey. 

“Slow down, I really don’t want to put up with you drunk.”

“I can’t get drunk,” muttered Erik. “I’ve tried.”

“I bet you have,” Charles slid his own tumbler closer to the bottle, and Erik obliged him by pouring. “That my friend is tragic.”

Erik could have replied, but instead his mind turned elsewhere, and he fixed Charles with a penetrating look. 

“You’ve killed before.”

Charles’ brows arched up and he sipped calmly. “How do you figure?”

“You don’t look very disturbed by the fact half of your mind killed three men.” 

At this, Baskerville’s ears perked up, and the hound shifted on the bed to turn his face in Erik’s direction and give him the best imitation of woeful puppy eyes the man had ever gazed upon. They were fairly convincing, and Erik would have folded had it not been for the fact the hound had killed three men, right in front of him, without batting a lash. 

Charles leveled a stony look at him. “And you let it. I told you that he was volatile, didn’t I? But did you listen? No. You went and let him liquefy three men’s brains.”

“I thought you sent him to protect me,” Erik said testily. “That’s what he was doing.”

“I meant for him to shield you,” Charles replied, in much the same tone. “Clearly you can’t be trusted to keep a leash on him—“

“Why should I? He’s your mind!”

Baskerville whined pitifully, putting a paw over his snout. Theatrical, but efficient. Erik suppressed a smile.

“Only half of it, and the half I don’t like,” Charles muttered, draining his second glass. Erik refilled it without a word. “Anyway, what’s done is done. And now, it is not the first time he has killed.”

Erik smiled widely. “Marko?”

“A Marko,” Charles admitted. “Just not the one you’re thinking. And—my father.”

That brought Erik up short. 

“Baskerville here is an unfortunate side effect of an experiment gone wrong.” Charles continued. “My father, by then well versed in experimenting on me, thought it might be interesting to separate telepathy from telepath. It didn’t go well. I died. He resuscitated me, and when I came back, he came with me.” 

The hounds’ tail thumped once. 

Erik was speechless. 

“First thing he ever did was doing me the favor of killing my father. With his death his laboratory assistant, Kurt Marko, married my useless alcoholic of a mother. Marko was smart in that he knew I could no longer be experimented on, but for some reason he didn’t think to tell his bully of a son to leave me alone. I don’t like bullies, Erik. I tolerated Cain for three years, and one evening I lost my temper and Lassie here,” Baskerville made a disgruntled noise at this, head lifting to glare at his master. “Fried Cain’s synapses.” 

Charles took a small sip of his liquor. “As for the other Marko, I have no idea how he got himself killed and me framed.” 

Erik’s eyes snapped up. “You think he got killed just to ruin your life? That’s a bit much.”

“You didn’t know Kurt,” replied Charles. “If it meant fucking me over, he would have done so and with relish.”

He waved a hand, dismissing the matter. “Anyway, that’s past matter and unimportant. Baskerville wasn’t paying attention after the men died. What did you do to the bodies?”

Erik frowned. “The bodies?”

Charles paused, glass rim almost to his lips, eyes flat. 

“The bodies, Erik,” he said silkily. Erik saw Baskerville’s ears flatten down against the hounds’ skull, great head lowering to his paws. “The men you let Baskerville kill. They died of strokes. Three men dying of strokes at the same time is rather an odd circumstance, is it not?”

Erik felt ice wash through his veins. The muscles in his chest contracted tight, cutting off his breath. 

Charles’ eyes grew cold as winter.

“You left them there _as they were?_ ”

Baskerville whined pitifully. 

“You—“ Charles stared at him, pupils contracting to pin-points, face paling. The tumbler dropped heavily to the table, whiskey sloshing over the rim. “You goddamn, worthless—“ he stopped suddenly, mouth snapping shut. 

A tense moment stretched between them. Erik realized that what was locking his muscles was a deep, maddening panic. Not from Charles, who he knew wouldn’t hurt him, but for Charles—because if Frost knew how far he could reach and with how much intensity, if she knew of Charles’ full power, then—

“Oh, bloody fucking hell,” Charles collapsed back against his chair, exhaling. “Your brain is ruined, my friend, let me tell you. the amount of reconstruction I’m going to have to do in your mind makes the restoration of the Coliseum pale by comparison.”

Erik swallowed thickly, managing to breathe out and in, out and in. Charles’ eyes were averted, giving him his privacy to gather the shreds of his composure back around himself. 

“That sounds like a monumental task,” he rasped. 

“That depends on how pretty you want me to make it look.” 

Erik relaxed, somewhat consciously, stretching out his legs and palming the tops of his thighs briefly. He felt more like himself, now. He cut his eyes up to Charles, uncertainly. 

“What do you think the cleanup mean will think of those bodies?”

Charles waved a hand. “I’m taking care of it already.”

Erik stared at him. “Are, right now, as we speak, manipulating their minds into filling a report how you want them to?”

Baskerville was still lying long on the bed, sleeping now. 

“I have mad skills,” Charles said flatly. 

“You’ve mad everything,” retorted Erik. 

Charles actually fucking leered. “Wait until you see me with my clothes off, babe.” 

Erik grimaced, “No pet-names, please.” 

“I call my lovers things. Get used to it.” 

“I’m not yet technically your lover.”

Charles gave him an unimpressed look, eyes sliding from his combed hair, down the length of his suit, to his shoes, and back up. 

“I’m sure you dress up and buy good whiskey for all your operatives.”

Erik chuckled quietly. “I made an effort.”

“Well, next time, make an effort before you come over, and try to cover up my psychotic emotional half’s murders, won’t you? That’d be darling.” 

Erik spread his hands. “It’s not like I have a leash on him. You’re the psychopath.” 

“Sociopath, you ignorant swine,” Charles wrinkled his nose at him. “And for the record, this traitorous little shit will listen to you.”

Erik’s brows shot up. “He will?”

The telepath gave him a testy look. “What, you think he kills men without prompt for anyone?”

A moment of pause. 

“Because you’re right if you do,” Charles held back a smile. “But seriously, he’ll take commands. Most of the time.”

Erik eyed the hound dubiously, but nodded. 

“This game of yours you’re so fond of,” Charles crossed his legs, elegant and poised even in jeans and a shirt. His bare foot brushed Erik’s left calf beneath the small table, a brief, accidental touch. “The twenty-questions one. You realize it means nothing with the damage to your mind.”

Erik pressed his hands together, frowning. “I’m—it doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do this to me?”

“They’re not your parents,” Charles said calmly. Erik’s eyes snapped to him, shocked. “I’m just pointing that out because you’re looking so betrayed. You realize of course this people have been manipulating you for years. Betrayal implies a deep emotion. Emotion makes you easily steered. I myself could use it against you. You need to let that emotion go.” 

“You say it like it’s something I can discard.”

“Can’t you?” Charles tilted his head quizzically. “Ah, well. I suppose that might just be me, then. But all the same, it’s sound advice.” 

“I can’t just separate the emotion form the fact like it’s braided leather, Charles,” Erik said, exasperated. “And I can’t—I can’t make heads or tails of it. Why would she go so obviously out of her way to—to what? Have me as he favorite toy?”

Charles swirled the whiskey in his glass, eyes half-lidded. 

“Frost is a one-trick pony,” he said dismissively. “She’s cunning, sure, but not a tactic genius. She’s just following orders, the real question is why Shaw wants you.”

“He likes to think of me as his son,” Erik said with disgust. 

Charles grimaced. 

“And I suppose in his mind this gives him leave to do with you as he pleases.”

Erik eyed him, wary. 

“Aren’t you projecting?” 

“If I were projecting, you would know,” Charles said firmly, sliding the glass across the table in a clear demand to be poured more liquor. Erik arched a brow and complied. 

Erik took a sip of his whiskey, let it coat his tongue and slide sinful down the back of his throat, fueling his courage, before he flicked his eyes back up to Charles. 

“Can you, though? Fix what they’ve done to me?”

Charles swallowed whiskey and nodded slowly. “A mind does not forget. It simply—misplaces.” 

“Are you sure that’s not another one of the things only you can do?” Erik asked dubiously. 

“No. A telepath’s mind is sharper, keener perhaps, but not differently constructed. Your mind simply loses track of its knowledge; but the knowledge itself remains. Mine just knows precisely where each little bit of it goes.”

“So—“ Erik frowned. “You mean to say your mind is like a library, whereas my mind is like—a nebula?”

Charles stared at him. “No. It’s nothing like that at all. But if it helps you visualize it, sure. Have it your way.” 

Erik gave him an irritable look, “Well what _is_ it like?”

“A nebula and a library.”

The handler cut his eyes to him over the rim of his glass, annoyed. Charles gave him a cheeky smile, batting his lashes like an asshole. Erik downed what was left of tanned-golden liquor in his tumbler and sat it quietly on the table, tasting it against his tongue. He relaxed back in his chair, letting his head fall against it, closed his eyes, and focused on the sting of it as he swallowed. 

He became aware, slowly, of Charles’ eyes lingering in the line of his throat. A wave of heat made its way up from his chest. He let his head roll to the side, looking at Charles from the corner of his eye. The telepath’s stunning blue eyes, seemingly stuck on his Adam’s apple, snapped up. It felt, suddenly, like something had thickened between them, congealing, from liquid and easy, to solid and heavy. 

Erik sat up, and in one fluid movement got to his feet and around the table. Charles sat back in his own chair, settling the tumbler on the table. He had to look up when Erik moved to stand in front of him, long legs at the sides of Charles’ crossed ones, eyes heavy-lidded. Erik reached out with his right hand and fingered the collar of Charles’ button-up shirt, idle. Charles’ own right hand, which had been on the table by his tumbler, fell softly to the outside of Erik’s knee. 

“Playing with wolves, little lamb,” he said quietly. 

“I’m not a lamb,” murmured Erik, fingers traveling up Charles’ long neck to his dark hair. “And for a wolf, your bite is rather light.”

“I haven’t bitten you yet,” Charles tilted his head. 

“Well then I suggest you marry action to word,” Erik said, and fisted his hand in Charles’ hair, dragging him up as he bent down. Their lips crushed, and the telepath gasped, taken by surprise by the roughness of it. Erik pressed his advantage, licking inside his mouth and he straightened, pulling the telepath up by his shirt and twisting. Charles’ hands scrambled on the fabrics of his suit jacket, searching for purchase as the taller man pressed him against the wall and pushed closer. 

Charles’ mouth was wet and warm, and tasted of rick shipped whiskey. Erik tilted his head, slanted his mouth more securely over Charles’ lips, flinched back when Charles bit him, hard, on the bottom one. Charles opened his mouth to comment, but Erik leaned in again, crushing him against the wall as he found his wrists and, with a physical ease against which Charles had little chance, brought them together at the small of the telepath’s back and held them there with one hand. 

For a moment, it felt like Charles was simply indulging him, letting him do whatever he wanted without reacting one way or the other; he didn’t push away or offer any sort of encouragement. The chances of dying a horrible painful death were still solid enough that Erik felt himself tense but then—Charles himself relaxed, pliant, in his arms, and with a sigh parted his lips and welcomed him in, this time. 

Erik shifted, free hand palming the back of Charles’ neck, and kissed the corner of his lips. Releasing Charles’ wrists, he pulled back slightly to settle his hands on the geneticist’ narrow hips and squeeze. He breathed for a moment, hot and damp, in Charles ear, before the telepath turned his head and caught his lips again, making a sound when Erik slid his hands from his hips to his back and pulled him close, flush against his front. 

Charles’ hands found their way immediately to Erik’s broad shoulders, finally slipping beneath the jacket and pushing it off. Erik pulled back to shrug it off, but just as it slipped down his arms Charles snatched it up, giving him a dark look. 

“Mind the suit.”

Erik rolled his eyes. 

“Do you want me to put that back on?” he asked sweetly. 

Charles brought the jacket up, gave it a sharp tug and folded it, neatly, across the back of the nearby chair. 

“That’ll do, pig,” he said calmly. 

Erik tilted Charles’ head up and took his mouth again, walking backwards to the bed, where he sat, and dragged him down to his lap. 

“I’ll tell you what,” he breathed, quickly and deftly undoing the buttons of Charles’ shirt. “You shut up for five minutes, and I’ll give it to you just as you like.”

“Oh, and you know exactly what I like,” Charles retorted, and then fell silent when Erik pushed him down closer so their erections met. He leaned closer, licking across the sharp line of Charles’ protruding collarbone, parting the fabric of Charles’ shirt and pushing it down his arms where it tangled, trapping him, because his cuffs were still buttoned. 

“Damn you,” Charles breathed, eyes closed, head falling against Erik’s shoulder. 

Erik hummed into his ear, twisting so Charles was lying beneath him on the bed. The telepath groaned and sat up, yanking his arms free of his shirt as Erik straddled him, undoing his own shirt. 

“Why don’t you just take what I give you? At least the first time.” he murmured, letting his shirt drop to the side of the bed. 

“You have a lot of confidence on your theoretical stamina,” Charles pointed out archly. 

Erik rose to his knees above him, unbuckled his own belt and tugged it out of its loops, tossing it carelessly to the side. Then he fell forward to his hands, so his face was inches from Charles’, and they shared the same air. 

“You think I can’t put my money where my mouth is?” 

“I just note where your mouth is _not_.” 

“Why don’t you stop fucking talking?”

“Why don’t you _make me?_ ” 

Erik made a low sound at the back of his throat. He found Charles’ wrists and pressed them up above his head. Charles writhed, testing the grip violently, but they both knew in physical weight Erik had the advantage a thousand times over. It was telling enough that Charles was even fighting it; if he truly had wanted Erik to release him, he would have done so with his telepathy. 

All Charles’ telepathy was doing, though, was enhance whatever was building between them. It was like a second layer of perception, an additional awareness, filtering like seeking fingers through Erik’s own mind. When Charles arched up against Erik’s body, the metal-bender could feel the flare of both of their minds in arousal, his like fire and Charles’, a gossamer-thin sheet beneath his senses, bust just as intense. 

Charles gasped. 

“I want your gift,” he murmured. 

“Next time,” Erik breathed, rearing up and unbuttoning Charles’ jeans. The telepath subsided, limp, against the mattress, and let Erik manhandle him. 

“All this talk about next time,” Charles said idly, lifting his hips to let Erik pull his jeans and underwear down. “Who says I’ll let you fuck me again?”

“Maybe next time you’ll fuck me instead,” Erik suggested, climbing off the bed. He took the lube and condoms out of his slacks pocket and tossed them at Charles’ chest before getting rid of his own pants, which—after a brief but sharp glance form Charles—he folded over the chair alongside the jacket. 

“There’s an idea,” Charles smiled, and welcomed him when Erik stretched out above him, pressing him down against the bed with his weight. They kissed for a long while, slow and unhurried, moving gently against each other. Erik let his weight rest on his elbow next to Charles’ head, and slipped his other hand down the man’s flank to his long, slender thigh. 

“But it’s not what you want, is it,” he mumbled against Charles’ swollen lips. 

“Not at the moment,” gasped Charles, obligingly bringing his thigh up and to the side. 

Erik sat up on his heels to slick his fingers with the lube, stroking his hand gently up Charles’ thigh. “I don’t suppose you care to tell me how much preparation you need?”

“I thought you didn’t want me to talk.”

Erik smirked. 

“I’ll just point out,” Charles said, breathlessly, a while later, when Erik reached over and grabbed the condom. “That the amount of forethought you put into this is disturbing.” 

Erik chuckled, lying down on top of him even as he brought Charles’ leg up, bruising the soft underside of his knee. 

“Says the man who wants me to fold my suits before I have sex with him.” 

“Carelessness is not—“ he gasped, head falling back. Erik kissed beneath his chin lightly, shifting closer, the sweat-slick skin of their chests sliding together. Charles’ fingertips sank into his shoulders. Erik pulled out and thrust, building up a rhythm, slow and steady and relentless. He found one of Charles’ hands and pulled it up to pin it above his head, even as Charles moved beneath him, harmonious, wordless. 

It wasn’t anything as clear as feeling as though he was both top and bottom at once, but Erik could feel the pulse of telepathy in his mind, like an echo. A ghost sort of touch, running alongside his own blood in his veins, beating as one with his heart. 

Charles’ other hand combed through his hair, unexpectedly tender, and the telepath brought his head down for a deep kiss that was almost entirely lips and an open mouth, finesse long forgotten. Charles shook apart first, his moan surprisingly loud against Erik’s ear. 

Once Erik had collapsed above him, breathing ragged and damp, Charles squirmed, grimacing. 

“Get off me, you oaf. You’re heavy and disgusting.” 

“I’m comfortable,” Erik mumbled, not moving. 

“I’m hot,” snapped Charles, shoving at his shoulders. 

Erik cracked an eye open and considered the telepath. All signs indicated Charles was done with the world’s shortest post-orgasmic bliss. They sweaty chests stuck together, and Erik could feel the tacky mess of Charles’ come between them, cooling to what would most likely, indeed, be a disgusting mess. 

With a sigh, he moved up and to the side, climbing out of the bed. He went to the bathroom, disposed of the condom and washed his face before tossing Charles a warm damp towel. The telepath cleaned himself fastidiously, balled it, and threw it back. Erik threw him a testy look and dumped it on the laundry hamper. 

Charles had stretched out in the bed, unselfconscious and lazy. Erik dug his cigarettes from his inner jacket pocket and went back to the bed, sitting up against the wall by the footboard. Charles folded his legs, crossing his arms behind his head. 

“What did you mean, before?” Erik asked suddenly, exhaling a long stream of smoke between parted lips. “About my mind being broken.”

Charles considered him for a moment, from his face down the ling lines if each and chest to his flat belly and his long bare thighs. 

“I think what they’ve done to you has somewhat damaged your mental agility,” he said. “If you were yourself, I do believe you would have thought to cover my tracks.”

Erik inhaled a lungful of smoke and released it through his nose. 

“You said you could fix it?”

Charles sat up and crossed his legs. “It’s not as you think. Your mind is not a puzzle with pieces scattered across the floor. Entire sections of recollection have been banned to you. I can fix it, but it is not a simple thing.” 

“I want to know who I am,” Erik murmured, eyes fixed on the glowing top of his cigarette. 

“Of course you do,” Charles said reasonably. 

Erik turned to look at him sharply. 

“Can’t you help me, then?”

“I’ve done what I can for now,” the telepath answer patiently. “Anything more forceful and I will hurt you. I have created cracks in the shielding, Your memories will trickle through. You’ll begin to remember. But you can’t force it, not without risking irreparable damage.”

“I can’t help but think that with all my memories I will be someone I’m not, right now.”

“It would be exceptionally disingenuous for you to believe otherwise.” 

Erik swallowed, getting up to tip ash into his empty tumbler. He hesitated momentarily, before turning back to the telepath. 

“What if that’s why they did it, though?” he rasped. “What if I’m a monster, and they—fixed me?”

Charles regarded him calmly, understanding much more than Erik was saying. “Do you think that would give them the right?”

A long silence. 

“No,” he answered finally, heavily. 

“No,” Charles agreed. The geneticist watched him for a long moment, smoking, before he tipped his head, eyes speculative. “Erik, you often have brutal nightmares, do you not?” 

“I used to, before Baskerville.” 

“The sleeping mind is a powerful force,” Charles said, shifting to lean his back against the wall. “That which the waking mind may seek to overlook, the subconscious will always register and remember.”

“You think the nightmares are my subconscious trying to make me remember?”

Charles spread his hands. “It’s more complicated than that. The shielding built into your mind is powerful. You have a strong mind, but with no psi abilities, it would be impossible for you to break through on your own. The nightmares may very well be your mind hinting at you that something is missing. But are they are surprisingly violent, from what I can tell. Your own mind would not attempt to traumatize in such a way.”

Erik dumped the stub of his cigarette into the tumbler and rubbed his face roughly. “You’ll have to translate it into idiot for me.”

Charles sighed in exasperation. “I think it’s a retro feed cycle. Your mind tries to alert you to the anomaly through the nightmare. It hits the shield. It increases the virulence of the nightmares in an attempt to trespass the shields. The violence of the nightmares terrifies your waking mind, which then in turn attempts to block the nightmares by naturally reinforcing the artificial shielding. It’s a vicious circle out of which you cannot break on your own.”

“But you can break it,” Erik said stubbornly. 

The telepath scoffed crossly. “Erik, yes, I can shatter the bloody shielding. But then I might as well put a bullet through your head. I don’t know what Frost has deleted and why. It’s like navigating a reef without a chart. Can I sail through it? Yes, probably. If I don’t mind destroying everything beneath the surface. Do _you_ mind?”

Erik ran a hand through his hair and went back to the bed, stretching out on his side. 

“I feel like I’m well out of my league in dealing with this whole thing. I’m not a telepath. I’m just—cannon fodder.”

“If that were the case, no one would go to this much trouble to keep you,” Charles pointed out, yanking the sheet out from under Erik’s body to throw it instead over the both of them. Erik made a noise of noncommittal and turned to Charles, meaning to move close—but the telepath was having none of it, so he had to settle for putting an arm in Charles’ lap and pressing his face to the side of the man’s hip, instead. For all of Baskerville’s intense demands of affection, Charles in all his faculties was as cold as an iceberg. 

A moment later, however, he pulled back and came up on an elbow. 

“Is that what you’re doing? Keeping me?”

Charles gave him a bland look. “You’re the one that came here with every intent to fuck me tonight, loverboy. If I wanted to have you as my toy, I would just plant the suggestion beneath the shielding Frost has so painstakingly put there.” And he very pointedly tapped a long fingertip on Erik’s forehead, cheeky. Erik caught his hand and pulled it away with a frown. 

“Is is too much to ask for a direct answer?”

The telepath sighed. “You have your answer, Erik. I might be cold and calculating and put into a effect a plan to use you as a tool by gaining your trust in whichever way you would require of me—logic might suggest I let you bed me, if that was what you wanted, to get you to side with me. You wouldn’t put it past me, and that’s wise of you, because I would do it. I would do anything to get myself out of a situation I do not wish to be in.” 

Charles shrugged, moving down in the bed to he could lie on his back, tugging the sheets to pull up a leg comfortably. The need to touch that came over Erik was startling in its intensity; his fingertips ached with the urge to ran smooth down Charles’ ribcage, where the blush of earlier had already vanished into soft, unblemished white. Up close, Charles’ skin wasn’t so perfect; his scars were small things, mostly round little needle marks, faded with time. But they were there. 

Whoever had tortured Charles, though, had had much more care of it than Erik’s tormentor. 

“I can lie to you as much as I want, but so long as Baskerville want you, it’ll be pointless. Baskerville can’t lie. He’s keen, but not cunning. If he were,” he added, arching a brow. “he would have suggested you shove something metallic and pointy through those men’s temples.”

Erik relaxed back into the bed, letting his arm fall across Charles’ stomach. The telepath made an impatient noise and squirmed away, but Erik ignored him. 

“Oh, for god’s sake,” he muttered, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’ve got myself a puppy, have I? Just what I needed.” 

“I thought you called me a lamb,” Erik mumbled sleepily. A flash of movement had him lifting his head quickly, alarmed, only to see Baskerville materialize from smoke by the door, eyes like banked fire. The hound yawned grandiosely, pulling black lips away from wicked fangs, and stretched out cross the door to settle in for sleep. 

Erik lowered his head back to the pillow, sleepiness forgotten. 

“What if I never remember?” he asked quietly. 

“You’ll remember,” Charles said distractedly. 

“But what if I don’t?”

The telepath sighed and turned back to him, eyes half-lidded with fatigue. He made an effort to compose his face into a calm expression, the line of his mouth soft and sweet. 

“It’ll be fine, Erik.”

Erik stared at him, unsettled. Lying down on his side on the bed, his back to the wall, he could only see the top of Baskerville’s back across Charles’ body. 

“Are you lying?” he asked quietly. 

Charles’ mouth quirked. “I’m not.” 

“If Baskerville wasn’t willing to show me,” Erik’s voice was almost inaudible. “Would I be able to tell?” 

The telepath’s small smile faded, blue eyes soft as velvet. 

“No,” he said finally. “You probably wouldn’t.”

Erik closed his eyes and pressed closer, his forehead touching the side of Charles’ face. He inhaled Charles’ scent, still sharpened by sex. 

“What kind of man do you think I am, when I have all my memories?”

Charles shifted minutely, hand wrapping around Erik’s forearm, skating up the swell of muscle to the underside by his armpit, where he could sink his fingertips in the muscle to feel the pulse of blood pushed by his heart. Not the first time Erik noticed him doing that. 

As if reassured by Erik’s heartbeat against his fingers, Charles went limp in the bed and closed his eyes. 

“A very different man,” he sighed.


	14. Chapter 14

Charles was flying. 

He flew in the minds of a thousand thousand men and women, flew across the distance that meant nothing to his power, flew through the eyes of children in swings to the eyes of men in offices.

His mind crawled over the walls of the facility and over them, away, across the ocean to a sailboat, sails snapping full of life in the wind, hull crashing through the waves. 

In the sailboat a little girl slept, and dreamed. 

In her dream a phoenix rose from the ashes and burnt the world. Death and rebirth, like a cycle, never-ending. The little girl slept. As did the phoenix, curled smoking inside her. 

A disturbance turned Charles’ mind away from the girl, refocusing his attention closer to his body. He pulled inwards, swarming back through thousands of minds, unstoppable, until he found his body again. 

He opened his eyes. 

Erik watched him, leaning against the doorjamb to his bathroom, arms crossed. He looked amused, but there was something else there in his eyes, something soft and warm. Charles turned away from it, focusing instead in folding his power in on itself, wrapping it around himself layer upon layer. 

Erik moved closer, towering now over Charles where he lay in the tub in warm water smelling faintly of jasmine water salts. It was an extravagance, but one Erik could afford, and Charles had been genuine when he’d said it helped him relax. 

Jasmine reminded of his mother. Charles hated his mother. Baskerville adored her. 

“Did it help?” asked Erik, sliding his hands into his pockets. 

“Hm.”

Charles shifted minutely, bringing his right left knee up against the wall and out of the water. Erik’s eyes flicked to it, heated, and then away, back to Charles’ face. 

Erik sat down at the edge of the tub, leaning forward on his elbows. 

“Commander Shaw decided to speed up our time-table.”

Charles let his eyes follow the line of Erik’s neck, down the curve of his spine to where it swelled into his ass, and back up. 

“Is that so?” he asked pleasantly. He lifted his right hand out of the faintly aromatic water and rested the tips of his fingers against the fabric of Erik’s shirt above his ribs. Watched the spots grow as it grew damp. 

Erik half-turned to look at him, catching his wrist as it retreated. 

“We’re going tomorrow instead.”

Charles blinked. “I rather expected to have to wait several weeks.”

Erik’s jaw-muscles ticked. “As did I. Looks like a one-of-a-kind opportunity showed up.”

Charles shrugged. 

“All the better. Once that’s out of the way I can focus on helping you remember.”

Erik gritted his teeth. “It could be dangerous. You’re not ready for the field.”

The telepath twisted his wrist to grip the underside of Erik’s, distracted by the touch of skin-on-skin and Erik’s gift, simmering beneath his skin like blood. 

“I can’t believe I’m getting this from you after you saw what Baskerville can do.”

Erik sighed. “I know. But still—you’re my operative. They should listen to what I tell them, and they’re not.”

“They probably just want me to get killed quickly. I’m obviously not good to your mental health. Or lack of it, I suppose,” he added with a frown. 

Erik’s grip tightened on his wrist, and for a moment Charles feared he was about to get some sort of heartfelt promise to not let anyone hurt Charles—at the rate Erik’s brain was decaying he wouldn’t have been surprised—but the handler apparently decided against saying whatever was on his mind, and released him entirely. 

“On the other hand, you’re a valuable asset,” he said. 

“Not if I don’t let them control me,” replied Charles. “Which I won’t.” 

“Can’t you play by the rules, just for a while, until we figure out a way to get out of here safely?”

“Who says I’m taking you with me?” Charles flicked water in Erik’s face, and smiled when the man flinched. “I don’t like rules. They’re boring. They make everything _predictable_.”

“God forbid there be an order to the Universe,” Erik muttered, wiping water droplets from his face. 

“Order is overestimated,” the telepath sat up, grinning as he leaned closer to his lover. “Chaos is the truest form of life. It strips people of every pretense and shows you the truth buried beneath all the layers of bullshit and political correctness and moral rules society imposes upon them.” 

“What if that truth is ugly?” Erik arched a brow. 

“How can freedom ever be ugly?” 

Charles wrapped his hand around Erik’s neck and brought him down for a kiss, falling back against the tub to drag him down with him. Erik made a pleased sound, bracing himself on the wall as he toed off his shoes. He lowered himself into the water with very little regard to his jeans and shirt, stretching out over the telepath. Water sloshed over the rim of the tub and onto the floor. The position was awkward—Erik was taller than the length of the tub, but they made it work for a moment, kissing, before Charles pushed him away to kneel between his legs. 

“Take your jeans off, I have delicate skin.”

Erik, by now well acquainted with Charles’ moods, laughed quietly. He leaned closer again, wrapping a strong arm around Charles’ waist and hoisting him up to straddle his lap. 

“Deal with it, princess.”

Charles hummed, reaching down to unbutton Erik’s jeans and snake his hand inside. 

Afterwards Erik was surprised to find himself with a lapful of a very placidly limp and warm Charles Xavier who was in no hurry to move away. With some shifting, Erik managed to rearrange himself in the tub, lying down as much as he could with Charles on top of him. He stroked his hand slowly down the telepath’s back, soothing and lazy. The outsides of his knees hurt where they pressed uncomfortably on the edges of the porcelain tub. 

“Can you at least promise me you’ll listen to what I tell you when we go?” he murmured, staring at the ceiling. “Can you trust I know what’s best in the field, better than you do?” 

Charles sighed. “Erik, we don’t know what you know. I don’t trust how well your mind works around all those recollection potholes.”

Erik gritted his teeth. “They wouldn’t ruin that though, would they? If they want me presumably because I am a good spy, or a good operative.”

“Not on purpose, but they cut so much off, darling. We can’t accurately estimate what you’ve lost in the bargain.” 

The geneticist shifted and finally moved away, kneeling between Erik’s spread legs. His hands settled lightly on Erik’s thighs. 

“I’m not going to follow your orders like a loyal lapdog. But I promise to try to give them due consideration.”

“And fail,” Erik predicted easily. 

Charles shrugged. “Isn’t the trying that counts?”

Erik shook his head in defeat, settling his hand son he edges of the tub to get up, wincing at the weight of his soaked jeans. The first thing he did as soon as he was out of it was undressing completely, throwing his clothes in the water and reaching for a towel. 

“Do you often wonder if you’d just go along with me if you were in full possession of yourself?” Charles asked casually, getting out as well and drying himself quickly. 

Erik looked at him. “I don’t know, do I?”

“I don’t think you would,” Charles mused, picking up a comb to push through his wet hair. “I think you wouldn’t go along with anything anyone told you.”

“You think you have an idea who I could be?” Erik crossed his arms, leaning back against the sink to give Charles nothing less than his full attention. He did that often; he was an intense sort of man, Charles figured. 

“Well, I happen to know who you’re _not_ ,” replied Charles, tugging at a stubborn tangle.

There was a long moment of silence as Charles worked the comb until he could run it through his hair unobstructed. Finally he settled the comb on the edge o the sink and met Erik’s eyes. 

“Your memories, whatever they are, shaped a man you currently have no access to,” he said calmly. “Right now you may think it unfair, and you are quite right to do so, but trust me when I say that the moment those memories start cascading back, you _will_ regret it.”

Erik didn’t need to ask why; he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t remember how he’d ended up covered in scars, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. 

“I’m not better off without them, though.”

Charles sighed. “No. You’re not. Even if I thought you were, still I would attempt to return them. I value truth more than I do comfort.”

Erik shrugged. “Maybe I do too.”

Charles gave him a jaded look. “Even if you could mask it from me, Erik, Baskerville can tell you are scared. No secrets around me, love. And I won’t apologize for it.”

“Are you going to tell me there’s no reason to be?”

“No, Erik, when I lie to you I’ll make sure it’s not something as obvious as that.”

Erik sighed, rubbing his hands up and down his face. “What if I’m some sort of monster?”

Charles had seen monsters. He could legitimately say this Erik was not one of them, but then again, this Erik was not the real one.

He settled for shrugging. 

“What indeed? If you are, someone will kill you. Or you’ll go on and haunt society like the rest of us. What difference does it make? I’d prefer a monster than this… this meek pathetic thing they made out of you.”

Erik gritted his teeth, eyed bright with anger. “ _Thank you_ for that.”

Charles shrugged again and brushed by him to get out of the bathroom, but Erik caught his arm, bringing him back against him. It was glorious, the way anger fanned his gift like flames, the way it fed it. Charles could feel it bright like a star in Erik’s mind, seething, wild. 

“If you don’t like this—this _thing_ I am, then why did you sleep with me?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I said I’d prefer the real thing. Obviously I like you. I wouldn’t get in bed with someone I didn’t at least respect. If you think I’d settle for anything less than brilliant as lover, you don’t know me at all.”

Even Charles had to admit that as praise that was pretty backhanded. Erik seemed somewhat bewildered by it, and the telepath took the opportunity to tug his arm free and slip out of the bathroom. Quietly mulling over what Charles had said, Erik did the same, and they dressed in silence. 

“Is the migraine gone, then?” Erik asked finally, seemingly content to let the whole subject slip. Charles indulged him. 

“Yes, but I didn’t want a soak just to get rid of that. Relaxation helps me spread out my gift. I wanted to check something I had perceived before.”

“Did it work?”

“It did,” Charles smiled slightly. “It’s very interesting what you find lying dormant sometimes.”

Erik laughed briefly, letting himself fall on the edge of the bed next to Charles. “Tell me about it.”

“I wasn’t dormant,” replied Charles, turning to face him. “I’ve always been perfectly aware of the reach of my power, ever since I was a boy. It continues to grow, which is why I need to monitor it often by doing what I just did: spreading it out as far as I can, and testing it.”

“Did you send Baskerville out?” Erik arched his brows, leaning back on his hands. Charles eyes dipped down to his chest and flat stomach, lingered, returned to his eyes. Erik smiled. The telepath’s mouth thinned in disdain. 

“No. Baskerville dissolved when I have no urgent need of him. What I did is more similar to throwing out a vast net, and see how far you can catch fish with it.”

“How far?” Erik asked quietly. 

“Very far.”

Erik made an exasperated sound in his throat and let himself fall back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 

Charles leaned over him and kissed him full on the mouth, slipping his hand under the turtleneck to press his palm against Erik’s navel. 

“I don’t have a parameter by which to compare you with the creature you might be, when whole,” he said when he pulled back, looking at Erik right in the eyes. “And neither do you. You’re scared of a _possibility_. Let it go.”

Erik closed his eyes, nodding slightly. Charles patted his stomach and rolled to the side to stretch on his back at Erik’s side, lacing his hands behind his head. 

“So, what’s the mission exactly? You never did tell me.”

It was espionage at its best. The mark was a CIA agent, one Moira McTaggert. She was, apparently, a stunningly intelligent woman, and Charles’ mission was to delve into her mind, find out what she knew of Division exactly, and who she had told. 

“Aren’t Division and the CIA on the same side?” Charles arched a brow. 

“No government agency is on the same side as any of the others,” Erik grumbled. 

How true that was. 

“We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. I’ll brief you on site. We’re going to California.”

“Oh, how nice. I do miss the sun.” 

Erik made a sound of noncommittal and sat up, leaning over Charles to rub his hand along the telepath’s flank. 

“Stay here tonight.”

“My room is not that far away—“

Erik leaned in to kiss him deeply, dragging his shirt up to palm his ribs. His gift pulsed out, gripping the bed again, jumping from spring to spring. 

“Goddamn you,” Charles gasped, following the path of Erik’s gift with narrowed eyes, back arching. Erik caught on quickly; his gift lit up his mind like a Christmas tree, and Charles couldn’t help but be fascinated by its every bright inch. 

In the end he did end up sleeping in Erik’s bed, but only because by the end he was too tired and relaxed to drag himself to his feet. 

Sleep would not come. The skin of Erik’s chest stuck to his back, pressing closer every time the man inhaled. Every time he exhaled, his hot breath skimmed over Charles’ neck, uncomfortably damp. Charles tried to shift away, but Erik’s arm had curled against his stomach, keeping him close. 

Still, the heat and the comfortable bed, and the odd sense of safety that was dawning quickly over him, did put him in some sort of drifting sleepiness; not yet a deep rest but not exactly wakefulness. 

Erik’s left arm was stretched beneath Charles’ neck. His hand hung off the edge of the mattress, long fingers slightly curled. They were covered in small scars, each perfectly visible and badly healed. A particularly long one from the wrist-bone to the web of skin between thumb and index finger seemed to have been particularly deep and, undoubtedly, painful. Half asleep and lazy, he reached out and traced a fingertip over the scar, lightly. 

Erik’s mind plunged into a nightmare so abruptly that Charles never saw it coming, let alone had the time to prevent it dragging him along. 

Ash in a sky painted deep grey with roiling clouds, and the sickening sweet smell of burning flesh. The skin of his left forearm was on fire. A cut along his scalp palpitated along with his heart, a violent race against a ribcage that felt too tight to contain lungs that could only with difficulty inflate. His breath caught in his throat and came out always a sob. In his hands a ring made of gold; he knew this ring, but this ring was not his. He was wretchedly cold along his front, where he faced the snow. Heat licked his back like an inferno; an oven—

A flash of flame black as night and the sound of jaws snapping. 

Charles crashed against the floor by the bed, sobbing. Baskerville, aflame, stood on the mattress where Charles had laid. Erik was unconscious, plunged into rest beyond dreaming. Baskerville could have torn him apart, but instead he had simply blocked the nightmare. 

The telepath pushed himself to his hands and knees shakily, breathing harshly. Baskerville whined. 

“No,” he gasped, kneeling and bracing his hands against the floor. “Let him sleep.”

Baskerville got off the bed and pushed his snout against the side of Charles’ neck, whining pitifully. Charles moved away from the bed, swallowing bile. He was on the floor for a long time, shaking intermittently, tasting ash and feeling snow where he should have felt the tiles of the floor. 

Needless to say, from there on sleep eluded him entirely. 

The only word he could formulate coherently was _how_ , and endless loop of it that nearly drove him mad. 

240006\. 

_How?_

Hours later, when Erik finally rose from a sleep so deep it was nearly a coma, Charles was sitting fully dressed at the table, with Baskerville’s head resting warmly on his lap. 

“Up early,” he commented, rubbing his short head sleepily. He turned to his back on the bed, stretching lazily. Charles followed the movement of his left forearm as if his eyes were glued to it. 

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Too warm? Sorry. I know I’m a furnace. Hey, boy,” Erik sat up, smiling at Baskerville and stretching out a hand. The hound loped closer, letting the man scratch his ear. Erik’s grin grew wide. His eyes were very soft. 

Charles looked away. 

“Don’t we have a plane to catch?”

Erik shook his head, climbing out of the bed. Instead of going directly to the bathroom, though, he came to Charles’ chair and leaned in to kiss him, tilting his chin up. The telepath kissed him back gently, slowly. 

“We’re actually being teleported. I’m taking a shower. You should go pack some things.”

Charles nodded. Erik frowned at him, crouching down so his knees were at either sides of Charles’ crossed legs. 

“Everything alright? You’re oddly quiet.” 

The telepath stroked his hand over Erik’s hair tenderly, tilting his head to thumb at the scar along his temple. 

“Perfectly adequate. Simply tired.” 

“You can get some sleep when we’re there. The meeting with McTaggert is in the evening.” 

“Sounds good,” murmured Charles, nodding. As he got up he squeezed Erik’s arm, and then left the room without another word. 

_How? How could it be?_

On the other hand, how could Charles _deny_ it?

Erik Lehnsherr was a Holocaust victim. He _had_ to be. Those memories were his; they were not implanted, not fabricated. 

Charles was drawing up blanks on all fronts when it came to trying to understand how it had come to be that someone who was a child between the years of nineteen thirty-seven and nineteen forty-five could not only be alive but young in two thousand and twelve. 

Two hours later when Erik came to pick him up, he still didn’t know. 

It was a sunny day in California. Charles basked in the golden sunlight for a moment, enjoying it against the skin of his upturned face, as he only distractedly paid attention to what Erik and their backup, Azazel and Angel, were discussing. 

The next few hours passed quickly, as Charles was only half listening to what was said. They had a room in a motel with two beds, and Erik spread photographs and papers in top of one of them and proceeded to give Charles a background check on Moira McTaggert, complete with date and place of birth and down to every single admirable achievement within the force and bosom of the CIA. 

Agent McTarggert was a fine operative, skilled, intelligent, and ruthless. Charles was meant to have dinner with her tonight in the guise of another agent form another organizations—something called SHIELD, whatever that was—and share information with her regarding Division. What was meant to be a friendly trade would then become a telepathic assault. 

This was not something Charles comfortable with. It was, of course, the fullest and heaviest definition of rape, to take something from a woman that she did not mean to give. A mental assault of such magnitude did not lose severity only because it was directed to a male, but Charles was more shaken by having to exert it upon a lady. Though perfectly aware of the fact that women could be every inch as monstrous as a man, Charles had never, himself, been abused by a woman—save for Frost, and she was more creature than female. McTaggert was a beautiful and capable woman and did not deserve what Erik asked him to do to her. 

Charles was obviously, as amply demonstrated, not scared of doing any sort of atrocities to protect himself, no matter whether the recipient of his atrocities had a cock or a vagina, but that was because he would survive his enemies. Moira McTaggert, on the other hand, was not his enemy, and did not deserve to be thus savaged.

Of all the times to develop a conscience regarding his treatment of what could only debatably be considered the ‘fairer sex’, this was certainly the most ridiculous. 

To pile hilarity on top of hilarity, the whole musing was a moot point; Charles had forfeited the mission that night in Erik’s room, tasting ash and burning flesh in his mouth and feeling the ghost of a ring he had never touched in is cupped palm. 

But something else had dawned upon him, something different and bitter that shook him to the core, and if he appeared cold and silent to Erik and the others throughout the day, it was not an accident. 

Finally, apparently catching onto Charles’ dark mood, Azazel suggested he and Angel go get some coffee for all of the,, Charles failed to acknowledge them, and when the door had closed, Erik had had enough. He came over to where Charles sat by the window and crouched down in front of him, hand son his thighs. 

“What is it?” he asked, frowning. “What’s wrong? Is it the plan? Charles, I will back you up, I promise you. You won’t get hurt.”

Charles smiled bitterly. “I’ve been promised that before, love.”

Erik shook his head stubbornly. “I won’t—“

“I asked you last night,” Charles interrupted. “if you thought you would go along with me if you were yourself. It’s a question you can’t answer, and I should never have asked it. I should never have been there in the first place. Whatever the circumstances, you are _not_ yourself. Sleeping with you was wrong. I’ve not been fair to you.” 

The German stared at him, shocked. “You think you’ve abused me?”

“I don’t think so. I know I have.”

“I’m a grown man—“

“A broken one,” Charles stood, moving away from Erik and solidifying his mental walls, tall and thick around himself. He kept Baskerville well locked beneath, trapped and silent. “No past, no memories, nothing to tell you how to react. Like an inexperienced child, you are easily malleable and manipulated. I know you to be an intelligent man, so don’t come to me with protests that none of this crossed your mind.”

Erik was silent. No, of course. Erik was not an imbecile; if he knew Frost could manipulate him, then he had to understand Charles could just as well. 

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Charles said honestly. “I didn’t do it to hurt you, or to use you, or with any ulterior motive at all. But I did it. I should never have trusted someone in your position to be able to give full and informed consent. I should have known to stop you. And I did not.” 

Erik lowered himself slowly to the chair, pressing his palms together. It was as if he didn’t know what to say to fix whatever he thought he’d broken between them. It made Charles’s gut twist even more; that he was vulnerable enough to believe _he_ had ruined this, and not Charles. 

“What happened last night?” Erik asked quietly, blue-grey eyes searching. “What changed? You were different in the morning.”

Charles glanced away. “I was mistaken. I thought I could be with you as you are, but I cannot. I need to know who you are. I need to know what’s been done to you and why.”

He saw with dismay that Erik, initial confusion overcome, was beginning to tip swiftly into anger. He’d never seen him truly angry, and he was sure it would be a glorious sight, but he didn’t want to witness it now. Erik was hurt and confused, and a lot of the time fear seethed below his skin, pervasive like acid. He’d trusted Charles and Charles had abused him. A powerful man, scared, without any direction to run into; it would surely turn into some form of aggression, and Charles knew he wouldn’t have the stomach to defend himself until his life was in danger and Baskerville broke loose. By then, it would be too late; Baskerville would rip him apart, one corner of the mind to the other. 

“I’m not only the man I’m not,” Erik said hotly. “For the last six years I have put together a life. It might not be whole, it might not be complete—but I’ve _lived_ it, and it’s _real_. I don’t know who I am with my memories, but I know who I am now, this man, here—I chose to sleep with you, not the shadow of that creature you think I can be.”

Charles shook his head. “It’s not that simple. You’ve been conditioned to obey telepaths. Baskerville has always liked you. How can you tell, for sure, how can you be certain, that I have not forced you to be with me?”

“How can _you_ be sure you _have_?” seethed Erik. 

Charles smiled. “I cannot. That, my friend, is why I haven’t touched you, and I won’t touch you again. Someone should do right by you. I’ve not much experience on the job,” he chuckled grimly. “but I’m willing to try.”

Erik’ gift was spreading across the room like wandering tendrils, restless and agitated by his master’s anger. What a magnificent weapon it was. 

“Why?” he finally rasped. 

Charles shrugged. “A lot of things were taken from me before I ever knew them, Erik, and I will never have them back. But the things that were taken from _you_ —those I can find. I can give them back. If and when that happens, if you are still interested in having a relationship with me, we’ll revise the subject.”

Erik stared at him, speechless. “You’re not being fair,” he murmured. “I’m not a child, even if I d have amnesia.”

“You don’t have amnesia,” snapped Charles. “Your mind was broken in shards. Can’t you see that? What do you think will happen to you if I don’t do something about this, Erik? No human, _no one_ , can live with a mind like yours. The only reasons the nosebleeds have stopped was that Baskerville healed some of the cracks in your mind because he likes you. You’re _dying_ , Erik. What they did to you is killing you. I refuse to let that happen.”

Erik was struck speechless again. Slowly, he backed a step and lowered himself to the chair, rubbing his hand over his mouth as if he could taste blood on his lips when there was none. Charles folded his hands behind his back, shoving Baskerville down ruthlessly when the hound sought to rise and offer comfort to the man. 

“I don’t think we should return to Division.” 

Erik’s eyes snapped up. 

“After this mission I think we should leave. Disappear.”

The handler’s mouth opened, eyes wide and shocked. For a moment, he was too stunned to speak. 

“I—you can’t. They’ll find us.”

“I’ve been hiding my whole life, and you’re not an idiot. We can make it work. Note that Baskerville isn’t here. This is logic speaking. I am telling you, logically, that we can make it.”

Erik shook his head, “You don’t know them as I do. They’ll find us and they’ll kill you.”

Charles tilted his head slowly, eyes narrowed. “What makes you think they won’t kill you, Erik?”

The man opened his mouth to reply, and found, to Charles simultaneous satisfaction and dismay, that he did not have an answer. Charles closed his eyes and lowered his head. 

“There are a lot of things I can’t offer you, Erik, but—“

“Do you love me?” 

The question threw Charles for a loop. He brought his head back up to stare at the man. Erik looked determined, eyes intense, jaw clenched. 

“This isn’t me acting on some foolish romantic notion,” he countered. “I told you, this is logic. I can save your life, and I want to. You’d be a fool not to take the chance.”

“Do you. Love me?” asked Erik insistently. He wasn’t going to let this go. 

“No,” was the honest, straightforward answer. “I can’t. I don’t feel love. It’s dead for me.” 

“What about Baskerville?”

“What about him?” Charles shrugged. “Even if he does love you, it’s not enough to say that I do as well.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Charles shook his head softly. “It’s not relevant. No matter what you believe I might feel for you, you won’t sway me. I won’t touch you again until you are in full possession of your memories and your own person.”

Erik leapt to his feet, furious, but the door swung open. Azazel stared at them, pale blue eyes swinging from one to the other. 

“Do you need more time?” he asked politely. 

“No,” Charles smiled. “All’s been said.” 

“You’re making all the decisions on your own,” growled Erik. _Without even letting me have my say_ he added, seething, for the first time using his mind to communicate. 

Charles smiled. _Then nothing has changed for you, has it?_

Erik’s teeth ground together. 

Charles spent the rest of the day alternatively ignoring him and being flawlessly polite, which he could tell was wearing the man’s patience thin. He didn’t see a way around it; if he indulged in any overtures of friendship, Erik would believe he had relented, and he had not. 

It was an exhausting exercise, and by the time evening rolled around, Erik was irked and restless, holding his shoulders so tightly it hurt to look at. Charles himself, impervious to enervation by his lack of emotions, was loose and relaxed. 

The suit they had given him was a flawlessly tailored three-piece, light grey, with a blue shirt. Unusual, for a government agent; they normally went for the inconspicuous. This suit was anything but. It threw out Charles’ stunning blue eyes, making them almost glow. It wasn’t as cold in California as it had been in New York, so an overcoat as not necessary. 

Erik affixed the small microphone to the collar of his shirt, where it would be hidden by its fold. 

“Be as quick as possible,” he said gruffly, folding the collar back down with long, firm fingers. “Don’t waste time in there. You could be caught on camera or seen by someone who can identify you.”

“Certainly this shirt doesn’t make me go unnoticed,” Charles agreed, disentangling Erik’s hands form his collar and fixing it himself. “I’ll be fine, Erik. Stop worrying.”

Erik was still in a state to chew metal and spit nails, but he wasn’t about to rehash the conversation in front of Angel and Azazel. Unrepentant, Charles gave him a slight smile and walked out of the room without a single word or backwards glance. It was a ten minute walk to the restaurant, and Charles shrugged out of his jacket to ensure he would not be overheated. 

It was a Japanese restaurant, small and comfortable, nestled between two larger restaurants, one Chinese and one, it seemed, Hindu. Charles put his jacket back up and buttoned it, and waited by the door, hands in the pockets of his pants. 

Agent Moira McTaggert made her first good move by arriving fastidiously punctual in her own black car. Charles smiled, going over to open her door and take her hand to help her out of the car. She was taller than he had expected, and very pretty. 

“Good evening, Moira,” he said, offering his arm as the valet took her car. 

“Good evening, James,” she smiled back. Her mind was clear and pleasant, and Charles caught the current coursing beneath with pitiful ease. He smiled, charming and deadly, and acting the perfect gentleman until they were seated, comfortably, at a private booth near the back. He ordered them drink and an appetizer, because if he was going to do this, he was going to be courteous until he no longer could. 

“There seems to be something in your collar,” she said, grinning. 

Charles returned the smile. Wordlessly, he reached into his collar and pulled the microphone out, laying it on the table between them. Moira casually picked up the wooden pepper shaker and smashed the device to pieces.

“I’m sorry,” Charles chuckled. “That was rude.”

Moira shrugged. “That’s alright, Mr. Xavier. I understand you’re under duress.”

Charles huffed a short laugh. 

“I thought I was going to be the one to do away with pretense, but you seem to have beat me to it.”

Moira leaned forward across the table, earnest and calm. “Mr. Xavier, I can help you.”

“Oh dear,” Charles blinked. “You’re here to offer me salvation. I must admit I did not see that coming.”

The agent looked stunned by his direct manner, but she was quickly and willing to adapt. By the turns of her mind, she much appreciated this calm, if cold, man, rather than a shy and insecure University professor caught in something he neither understood nor controlled. 

“There’s something you need to know,” she said, lowering her voice. “Kurt Marko was murdered by an assassin on Sebastian Shaw’s orders.”

Charles felt Baskerville rise and break free, slam against the outer protective walls and trash, trapped. He paid little attention, instead letting his mind click that information together with the many other facts already in his grasp. 

“They needed a telepath,” she continued. “And his White Queen never leaves the compound. You were the easiest mark to get to. I’m sorry.”

“Hm,” Charles blinked slowly, thoughtfully. Baskerville clawed at the walls. “Of course. And now she sent me here, to interrogate you, even though you obviously have a telepath watching your mind. If I had tried something other than reading you, I would have been gunned down by the lovely sniper on the window of the building across the street.”

Moira frowned. “Now she wants you dead?”

“We didn’t get along.” Charles smiled pleasantly. “How did you know it was me that would come though?”

“I’m bait,” she answered, unconcerned. “We’ve been trying to get Division to come to me for months.”

“Congratulations, then, on your success.” 

McTaggert nodded slowly. The drinks arrived, and Charles took a sip of his gin tonic, pensive. Moira wiped a finger absently over the condensation on the glass of her bloody Mary. 

“What do you expect to gain from me, Agent?” he asked at length. 

“We can get you out,” she said immediately. “Right now, tonight. If you cooperate and tell us everything you’ve learned—“

“What do you know about Division’s mutants?” Charles barreled over her. “Do you know if any of them, agents past or present, might have had the ability to extend life?”

Moira sat back, puzzled. “Extend life?”

“Yes. To make it so that someone born in, say, nineteen thirty, would not only be alive today but remain young. Stuck somewhere in his early thirties, by my estimation.”

Moira’s eyes unfocused as she thought it over, mind working methodically over information. Charles watched her, skimming only the most superficial layers of her mind, wary of the telepath monitoring their meeting. 

“Someone who could stop aging around the nineteen sixties,” she murmured. Her dark eyes fixed on Charles. She wasn’t coming up with anything, but Charles saw, fascinated, how her mind began to link things together, forming a long, sturdy chain of recollections that led, ultimately, to a conclusion. 

She hesitated only momentarily, wondering if she could trust him, but it had already become evident that Charles was no imbecile, and Moira liked competent men enough to make a gamble. 

“I think I might have something. Shaw is immortal; he absorbs kinetic energy and turns it into potential for cellular regeneration. I’m not clear on how that works, I’m not a biologist, but I can tell you it does work. He’s been alive since the nineteen hundreds at least.”

Fascinating. “Could he have transferred this ability to one of his… hm, followers, somehow?”

“I don’t know how he would manage that,” admitted Moira. “But there’s something else. He was with the Nazis in the concentration camps, and we strongly suspect he was into experimentation.”

 _Yes, he was_ , Charles thought, teeth grinding. Erik must have been nothing but a boy then, barely a teenager—

His eyes snapped up. 

“What do you know of a boy called Max Eisenhardt?” 

Moira seemed confused by the abrupt changes of direction, but she rallied. “We think he was an experimentation subject. Died in a camp, very young.”

“Was he a metallokinetic?”

“We think so, yes. The files are sorely lacking on his medical information, but some data survived.” 

Charles’ mind raced. Baskerville had stopped thrashing as the considerable power of Charles’ mind turned instead to figure this out. 

“He was a metallokinetic boy in the Nazi concentration camps,” he mused. “The number in his forearm was 240006. He died a boy—or did he?” he pinned Moira with his eyes. “How certain are you that he did?”

Moira shook her head. “A lot of people fell through the cracks after the Holocaust. I can’t be sure he did die in the camp. At one point he disappears entirely. Ife he lived, he might have escaped. Why is he important?”

Yes. He escaped, but perhaps not far or fast enough—he must have been recaptured and tortured for his escape, enough to break his mind. Unless—unless something else had happened, instead. 

“What do you know of Shaw’s research?”

Moira nodded, following, seemingly, his thoughts. “He worked together with a man called Schmidt. Schmidt run a parallel operation; he was looking for a way to make a super soldier. He experimented on himself, but it didn’t work out right, and the side effects were—unpleasant.” She winced. 

“The super-soldier program?” Charles frowned. “The famous birth of your fine Captain America?”

“America and Germany were struggling to one-up each other on it. America got hold of Abraham Erskine, who did concoct a functional serum he administered to one Steve Rogers, who by means of will and some miracle, survived the experiment and became Captain America. But the Nazis never did discover the formula.”

“Perhaps your information is lacking,” said Charles. “Perhaps they didn’t develop the same formula Erskine did, but a different one. With Shaw’s blood and his cellular regeneration, achieving immortality should be possible.”

But, more than likely, not without side effects. If they needed a guinea pig, surely a disobedient and unruly experimentation subject whose medical record they were well acquainted with would be perfect. Enter the erstwhile Max Eisenhardt, recovered no doubt with considerable violence. If he died, nobody would mourn him; if he lived, Shaw got himself an undying powerful lapdog. 

“What do you know of the Omega metallokinetic that set the record by which they now measure all others?”

Moira spread her hands. “Nothing. Not even his name. He was killed at the age of twenty-nine by Nazi renegades around the nineteen-sixties. We don’t—“

Her mouth snapped shut. 

“You think they’re one and the same.” 

Charles wasn’t listening to her anymore. Lightning-quick, he was putting together in his mind the biography of a boy caught in a cycle of horrors. Concentration camp, experimentation, escape, capture, experimentation—escape again? The Omega had been reported dead, but then as had Max. Perhaps he had escaped again—and hid, and run, until six years prior when he had once again been found, recaptured, and reshaped. Into Erik Lehnsherr. 

Charles felt slack with horror. 

“Good God,” he whispered, paling. 

“Go,” he breathed and only then turned inside his mind to Baskerville, setting him free. _Find him, shield him._

Baskerville left with a wisp of power, but seconds later he returned, panicked, having failed to find Erik. 

“Bloody fuck,” muttered Charles jumping to his feet and snatching up his jacket. 

“Xavier—“

“Get up, you’re driving me. I need to find my partner, I have to protect him.”

Moira needed no more encouragement, and followed him at a brisk pace outside the restaurant. She drove like the devil, and the tires of her car screeched when they finally pulled into the motel parking lot. Charles spared a thought to keep her in the car, safe and out of the way of Erik’s confusion, which would more than likely turn into anger. 

As soon as he walked through the door, he was greeted by the sweeping arch of a falling blade. He turned just in time, taking the blade at the shoulder instead of the neck, and in one swell of merciless power snapped Azazel’s mind to a million pieces, killing him. Angel had a gun, but she was dead before she reacted, falling limp to the ground. 

Baskerville was frantic, but Erik was nowhere to be seen. Charles knew it was pointless to look inside the room, since it was small, but what more could he do? If Azazel had teleported the man back to base, how was Charles going to get him out again? 

He should have prevented this, he realized. He should have overwritten whatever orders Azazel and Angel had regarding Erik, should have made it so they would not touch him or take him anywhere. Should have—

The cold metal of a gun pressed against the back of his skull. 

Charles scrambled for a grip in Erik’s mind, but it was like a cool, glossy glass surface. No handholds. Nothing. 

“Erik,” he breathed, ragged. 

“Nothing but lies, wasn’t it? You betrayed me.” Erik didn’t sound like himself at all; he sounded like ice wrapped in a man’s throat. There was nothing there for Charles to grasp or soothe; Erik’s mind was wiped clean of everything. Blank.

Baskerville materialized in front of Charles, fur and eyes like coals. His ears were plastered to his skull. He could kill Erik as easily as a falling star could demolish a house. No matter how strong Frost’s shielding, nothing could withstand Charles’ will to destroy. Charles could kill Erik—but only through Baskerville. 

The hound’s eyes grew to flame, fur turning to fire. Give the order. Give the order. Give the order. 

Charles closed his eyes. 

Heat and a sound wet and solid and oh, that _hurt_ —


	15. It Tolls for Thee.

It started in a cold winter morning. Wolverine was the first. 

He woke with an exhalation and a blink. The world solidified around him like mist crystallizing into objects. He laid there in his bed for a moment, blinking slowly as he adjusted to the pounding pain in his head. 

His most faithful companion, the migraine. 

Once he felt he could function again, he sat up slowly and got out of bed. Into the bathroom. 

Showered, brushed his teeth, spat into the sink.

He straightened and looked at his reflection in the mirror absently for a moment. Distracted, he wiped at the blood on his upper lip and nostrils. He was bleeding again. He hadn’t noticed. 

He grabbed the razor and stared at it. Honed it to scalpel-sharpness with his gift. A flash of memory broke across his mind; Charles’ blue eyes half lidded, and his soft pale skin beneath the pads of Erik’s fingers as he slid the razor across his jaw. Heat and softness and power, and a tongue as sharp as the razor. 

The image dispersed, and as it left Erik felt gutted and empty like a wooden doll. 

Whenever an image of Charles came to him, it brought with it the knowledge that Charles had played him to get out of Division, betrayed him, used him. 

What hunted him the most was not the betrayal, though. Nor the dear feeling of Charles writing beneath him, warm and alive and laughing lazily against the skin of Erik’s throat, warm breath and roaming hands. 

What haunted Erik’s sleeping and waking hours was the sound of a gunshot and Charles’s body sprawled cooling on the floor. 

He blinked at the mirror, the images of his own face, pale and haggard, superimposed with the one of the back of Charles’ skull. So much blood. Blood everywhere. 

Blood on his hands there in front of the mirror. He stared at them dumbly. Oh. He’d cut the pad of his thumb on the razor. He brought his hand up and sucked at it, tasting the metal of blood against his tongue. He stared at himself in the mirror. A stranger stared back. 

He wet his face, applied the cream, shaved. Then he dressed—a shirt and jeans—and picked up the bottle of vicodin on his way to the mess. Orange juice and a toast. He could hardly hold it in his stomach, but he downed it all the same. He was staring at the second slice on his plate when the boy sat down in front of him, huffing, rubbing a hand through his short blond hair. 

“It’s too fucking early.”

Erik blinked mutely. 

“I mean, what the fuck, why am I awake this early, what are you, a slave driver? I’m not in the fuck army, asshole.”

“This is a military-like operation,” Erik answered flatly. “You will be instructed in military ways to ensure your safety and efficiency.”

“What are you, like, reading that off a document over my shoulder or something? Hey, Intel Inside, I’m talking to you.”

“Shut up and eat your breakfast.”

Summers made a sound of token disgust—everything seemed to anger and disgust Alex Summers, from Erik’s attitude to the food to the color of the floors and walls—but dug into his bowl of cereal and milk. He chewed noisily. Erik grimaced and sat back, palming the bottle of painkillers. He dropped one tablet onto his hand and swallowed it, chasing it with the last of his orange juice. 

“Drug-addict,” muttered Summers, stealing Erik’s abandoned toast and eating it in three loud bites. 

Erik didn’t reply, instead rising from his chair and gesturing for Alex to follow. 

Routine. Physical training. Mutation training. Tactical instruction. Team maneuvers and discipline. 

Alex was a difficult person. He disliked commands, had an instinctive distrust for authority figures, and had some sort of particular dislike for Erik himself, as if the very sight of him made his skin crawl. 

Erik couldn’t blame him. 

He wasn’t particularly fond of his agent himself, but Alex was his to train, and train him he would. He’d give him all the tools Alex would need to survive in Division, and then not complain when Alex was passed on to another handler, as they had been doing for the last four years. 

Erik hadn’t been out of the facility in years. He didn’t need to. He couldn’t handle the field. 

After dispatching Alex to his tactics training, he returned to his own room and sat down to do some paperwork. He had just gripped the second document when there was a knock on the door, and Ororo peeked in. 

“Yes?”

“Hey, sorry to bother you. Have you seen Wolverine lately?” 

Erik thought about it. 

“Not for a few days. I figured he was on an assignment. Isn’t he?”

Ororo shook her head. “He wasn’t scheduled on any and no one has seen him in a week.”

Erik frowned. He hadn’t known Logan was missing, but that didn’t surprise him. Frost and Shaw rarely trusted him with information these days. “Did you ask Frost?”

“She has people looking for him all over. She insists she can’t feel him at all. Like something’s blocking her.”

“Could he be dead?” he asked calmly. 

Ororo looked unsettled. “What could possibly kill off Logan, Erik?”

The metallokinetic had to agree the idea was disconcerting. “He’s always been resistant to telepathy. But he’s never been able to block her out before. So either he’s well out of range, or he’s dead. Did Tony check all the available tech means of finding him?”

Ororo spread her hands, “I don’t have clearance for the workshop so I don’t know.”

Erik put down his pen and rose, swaying only slightly. He ignored Ororo’s look or abortive hand gesture—as if she reached out to him only to then stop herself—and stepped out into the corridor. 

He found Tony sprawled on his back on the workshop under what looked like some sort of metal armor. Tony and his projects. Erik wasn’t in charge of making sure he didn’t blow up the facility anymore, so he didn’t know what he was onto now, but with some luck it wouldn’t end up killing them all. 

“Tony,” he greeted, standing over him. Tony grunted. “Could you get out from under there and talk to me for a minute?”

The mechanic did so will little grace, scowling at him from the floor. 

“What?”

The hostility was not new, but Erik still didn’t understand it. Something had changed between them, and Erik couldn’t quite pin-point what it was. The Tony that would have gladly shared a tumbler of whiskey with him only as long as four years before now could hardly be kept in a room with him. 

“Have you been looking for Wolverine with cameras or GPS?”

“He’s nowhere to be found,” answered Tony. “Anything else?”

Erik stared at him blankly. “What about his chip?”

“The chip I found in a trashcan on downtown Miami. It was not attached to its owner. I don’t know where Wolverine is. Are we done here?”

Erik looked away. He could feel the song of the metal around him, muted, lacking harmony. He could only sometimes correctly grasp it, these days. He and it sang together, but unsynchronized. 

Soon enough, he’d lose it entirely. 

“Keep looking.”

“Yessir,” muttered Tony, and slid back down beneath the hanging armor, a chest-plate and arms and a helmet with no face, and chains and refrigeration tubes hanging off it like guts split open. Erik swayed on his feet and backed away, swallowing. 

Ororo was waiting by the elevator doors, and straightened anxiously when he stepped out. 

“He says he found the chip, alone, in Miami.” 

Ororo frowned. “Would he have left? He had nowhere else to go.”

Erik thought that he didn’t have anywhere else to go either, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be here. If he could have left, if he had thought he would have made it anywhere, maybe he would have left, too. But there was nowhere to go and no way of getting there. 

“I don’t know. Keep an eye open and tell me if you know anything else.”

So Wolverine was the first. 

A month after Wolverine had gone missing, Kitty Pryde went on a mission. She did not return. Erik would have presumed her dead, except for the fact her body was never recovered and no traces indicated she had been injured at all. The mission had been going well, the handler told him—Erik wasn’t an active handler anymore—and then suddenly Kitty’s line had gone silent. Not a sound, nothing to indicate complications with what was essentially a find-and-recover mission. Perfectly simple. It as something Kitty did all the damn time. Routine. 

They found her chip on a water fountain in Toronto. 

Agents got killed on the field often enough. If she had died, or if Wolverine had died, Erik would have felt sorry and moved on. But they weren’t dead. They were just gone. Division had built a whole system to avoid their agents escaping their reach, disappearing as if into thin air, and the system had been working perfectly, like a well-oiled machine, for years. Erik had been in Division for a decade and not once had an agent simply _vanished_. 

For the next two months, nothing happened. But then in October not only did Sean Cassidy disappear, but he disappeared along with his handler, Piotr Rasputin. Erik knew Piotr well; he would not just have walked away. Piotr believed in what Division did. He wanted to help people. There was absolutely no malice in the giant. That he had simply—walked away, or whatever it was that was going on, was bewildering. They found their chips fused together in a small sailboat off the coast of Greece. Which also made no sense because they had been working an assignment in Chile. 

Then the harshest blow. Ororo. 

Her chip was in a subway station in Moscow. She’s been working in Paris. 

How? How could they be just—disappearing, as if they had never even walked the Earth? No traces, no paper trails, not even any indication of what had happened. Nothing to predict who would be next. No clues. No way to find them. 

Agents died, of course. But Division prepared its operatives well enough that it happened rarely, and to lose five top-performance operatives in four months was staggering. 

And there was Ororo. Gone. 

“What are we doing about this?” he asked Frost the next time he saw her. She was sitting primly at her fainting couch, long legs crossed, white cape draped artfully over her lap in rick luxurious folds. Erik hated her with a startling intensity, and had long since given up any attempts to understand why, or even hide it. She knew. Let it crease her finely shaped eyebrows and sit heavy in the pit of her stomach. 

Not that it did. She couldn’t care less. 

“I don’t know what’s happening,” she replied coldly. “So what would you suggest I do?”

“We’re losing valuable assets.” 

“ _I don’t know what’s happening_ ,” she repeated as if he were stupid. 

Erik left the office. He wasn’t sure why she hated Frost so much, just as he wasn’t sure why Tony hated him so much, but the sight of her made his stomach turn violently. 

He couldn’t do anything about it, though. He was stuck in the facility. He’d been forbidden to step outside the perimeter. Every day his migraines and nosebleeds got worse. He knew he was dying, though he didn’t know the cause exactly. It didn’t bother him as much as he figured it should. Despite being less than forty years old, he felt ancient and jaded, like a rock wearied by the constant rub of water. 

Besides. Charles was dead. He’d been a traitor and a bastard, but. Erik had. Something. He’d felt something. And Charles was dead. He’d killed Charles. 

When he woke up the next morning, his pillow was stained with blood. Getting out of bed was a chore, but he got up, shaved, brushed his teeth. Skipped breakfast this time. He wasn’t hungry. 

Alex was bizarrely cheerful. Ad they walked he trailed his fingers across the wall, absent-minded, and when he caught Erik’s look he arches his brows. 

“Ever heard of the walls picking up thoughts?” 

“No.”

“It’s like they remember,” Alex said, and grinned. He pressed his palm flat against the wall, and dragged it down as if smearing paint on the surface. Like he was intending to leave an imprint. “I’m just telling the wall what I think.”

“I don’t think the wall deserves that,” commented Erik. 

Alex flipped him off. 

Disaster struck three months later. 

Tony. 

Tony was gone. 

Erik stood in the middle of the workshop, listening to the broken song of metal, and Tony was gone. The armor he’d been working on was gone as well. His files and research were corrupted and erased. JARVIS, the AI he’d designed on a long stretch of boredom, had disintegrated into unrelated files. 

It was a catastrophe. Not only was Tony their main hacker and the builders of almost all of their high-tech toys, but he was also a brilliant operative and strategist. He’s been an essential part of Division. Spinal column. Part of the brain. 

Gone without a trace. 

Even worse, Tony had not been on an assignment. He’d been right there in the workshop where Erik stood now. The cameras had recorded it. One second he was sitting there, back to the camera. Then he’d stood up, reached for something behind the armor. Then armor and Tony were gone. The destroying of his systems and research had been remotely done. 

His chip was left on a tabletop on a Starbucks in Manhattan. 

The next day all chips stopped working entirely. 

Colonel Shaw sat Erik down on a chair in his office and insisted he needed to focus and find them with his mind, locate them with his gift. 

Erik looked out the wide, floor-to-ceiling window, out towards the city sprawling in the distance. A sea of flickering lights like stars stuck to a pool of blood. 

“It’s gone,” he said simply. “I don’t have that power anymore. The song is wrong.” 

“You’re not making sense, son.”

Erik turned to him, eyes blank. He saw him sitting there in his smart black suit. Saw him sitting at another desk in another smart suit, what felt like decades prior. Different suit, different desk; same man. Always the same. “I’m not your son.”

He dreamed of skies painted ash-grey. He woke and felt like a writhe, a ghoul, something that walked and did not live. 

“This is bullshit,” said Alex, two weeks later. “I’m rotting here, man. If you don’t have a mission for me can I just go? This is lame.” 

The next morning Jubilee disappeared. From her room. That same afternoon, Janos. 

“Dropping like flies,” muttered Victor Creed. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Alex, sitting back in his chair with his feet up on the table and his fingers laced behind his head, shrugged. 

“Cosmic justice? You know. The Universe getting rid of its own mistakes.”

Erik looked at him. The boy couldn’t have cared less who lives and died here. He was not invested in Division in the least, even though he’d been there for almost ten months already. Some people just can’t be domesticated. 

He thought of Charles again, like a blade sliding into his temple. Eyes like the sky. Eyes like fire. Skin and fur. 

“Your nose is bleeding again,” said Alex, sounding bored. Then he closed his eyes and began humming a tune. Erik knew he’d heard that somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where. He got shakily to his feet and went to wash his face. 

He dreamed of warm skin and a hand wrapping around his arm, fingertips against his pulse, and _your mind lights up with it_. 

It was worse than the ashen sky. 

A week later, Shaw came to find them in the gym, working out in the mat. 

“You have an assignment.” 

Erik frowned. “He’s not ready, sir. Besides—what about the disappearances? We don’t know—“

Shaw cut him off with a frigid look. Oh. So that’s what that was. Alex was expendable. They wouldn’t bother with him anymore, and if he died, just as well. As for Erik—well, clearly he had become expendable himself. He reminded himself he was dying in any case. Whether he did so choking on his own blood as he slept or with a bullet to the eye made very little difference. 

He would take the bullet. A good clean death. He’d given Charles that much. Surely he deserved it as well. 

A car to the airport. A plane to Saint Petersburg. A car to the hotel. Erik sat Alex down to the table and briefed him fully on their assignment. To find and retrieve a young mutant girl, Raven, and to protect her. She was being held in a warehouse outside the city. Presumably she was being tortured. Erik wanted to feel horrified. All he felt was numb and tired. 

As they waited to the night to fall, Alex sat by the window and looked out. It was December and Russia was covered in blinding white snow. 

“You ever heard of the Grim?” the boy asked, turning to him with surprisingly blue eyes. Erik felt himself stiffen, as if the boy’s blue eyes were an accusation. But they were calm, clear. 

“The one with the cloak and the scythe?” 

Alex grinned crookedly. “That’s the Grim _Reaper_. I mean the Grim. As in Harry Potter.”

Erik shook his head as he disassembled a gun to clean it. He remembered doing it with his mind, once upon a time. He no longer had the fine control necessary. 

“It’s a sign of coming death. Like if you see it, you’re gonna die.”

“Is it the barrel of a gun?” 

Alex laughed briefly and turned back to the window. “Nah. It’s a dog. A huge, giant black dog.”

Erik’s eyes snapped up. 

“It supposedly bring about your demise,” continued Alex, and turned to grin at Erik. “Crazy shit, right?”

“Have you seen it?” Erik asked, feeling sick to the stomach. So much blood. 

Alex snorted. “Of course not, asshole. I was just thinking of walking into danger or whatever.” 

Erik stared at him for a long time. Alex was humming that tune again. 

“What song is that?”

“Huh?” Alex blinked at him. “Oh. It’s just a song I learned. From and English friend.”

Erik stared down at the parts of his automatic pistol spread on a cloth on the table. He closed his eyes. He could feel the impact of the recoil against his palm as he pressed the trigger. A spray of warm blood. Charles limp on the ground. 

He opened his eyes. A drop of blood sat dark on his hand. He wiped his nose and went to wash his face. 

“You’re falling apart at the seams, old man,” called Alex, laughing. 

_Yes_ , thought Erik, watching himself in the mirror and not recognizing his face. _I am_. 

Night fell. Erik and Alex shrugged their coats on and carefully, quietly, made their way into the warehouse. It was torture. All that metal, and the song broken, distorted, to Erik’s blood. They no longer sung together. The gun was a dead weight in his hand, instead of the leaving, pulsing thing it has once been. Falling apart at the seams indeed. 

They fell upon them like a swarm. Erik emptied his clip onto them but never seemed to hit a single one. Alex’ plasma beam sliced through the walls. Though the support beams. Half of the warehouse began to collapse. Erik scrambled to find cover, and then remembered the girl, and scrambled to find her instead. 

“Raven!” he called out, dodging falling debris, stumbling away from an exploding window. Shards of glass like diamonds in the moonlight. Hot blood trickled down his cheek from a cut. He swiped at it distractedly as he stumbled into the office. A woman was sitting on a desk there, long legs crossed, examining her fingernails. She was blue from head to toe. Long fire-red hair cascaded down her slender shoulders, stark against her delicate white dress. Her eyes were lion-gold. 

“You called?” she grinned. 

“Raven?” he frowned. 

“Who did you expect? The Grim?”

Erik felt his heart speed up. 

“So this is how they disappear.”

Raven laughed, hopping off the desk. “No. This is what happens before.”

“Who are you?” 

“I would say I’m your worst nightmare, but…” a theatrical grimace and a wink. “I think we both know that’s not true.”

Erik gritted his teeth. He might die, but he wasn’t about to make it this easy. He lifted his gun and blew out the sole light-bulb in the room. He heard Raven laugh briefly, and darted out the door. He needed to warn Alex. Get him out of here. Keep him safe. He was just a boy. Cold, ill-tempered, and callous, but just a boy. 

Everything in the warehouse was quiet. Erik moved cautiously against the decimated wall, eyes darting around. He didn’t dare call for Alex. Once upon a time he might have managed to locate him by his chip with his gift, but now—now that was gone. 

Suddenly Alex was standing over him, grabbing his arm. 

Erik tugged him down to the floor. 

“Raven is a hostile,” he muttered quietly. 

“I know, dipshit,” Alex twisted his arm free. “You’re as dull as a spoon, aren’t you?”

The metallokinetic frowned at him. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

“All those people I killed with my beam,” Alex got up and stepped away to the center of the warehouse. “Where are the bodies?”

Erik glanced around. Damnit. Not a single body on the ground. The plasma would have sliced right through them. 

“Take cover, Alex,” he said tightly, crouching. 

“Fuck you,” replied Alex, and Eric saw Raven walk up to his side, lion-gold eyes sharp, smile soft. 

Erik’s eyes darted between them. 

“It was you who made the others disappear,” said Erik slowly. 

“I just talked to them,” Alex shrugged. “If they heard something they didn’t like, and then decided to leave… that’s not my problem.” 

Erik stood, fists clenching. “Why? Who do you work for?” 

“Not you, you lying, backstabbing piece of _shit_ ,” growled Alex, chest heating. Raven wrapped a hand around his wrist, pulling him back. 

“Who do you think, Lehnsherr?” she asked, and her eyes shifted, leaching gold to blue. Erik watche din horror as her face changed into another one. High cheekbones, red lips, eyes as blue as her skin. 

“Can’t you tell?” Charles asked, head tilting, lips curling in that familiar mocking smile of his. “Darling?” 

Alex’s eyes fell somewhere to the right of Erik’s shoulder. Eager to take his eyes off the fake Charles, Erik turned around. 

Worse. 

Fur like curling flame and eyes like dying stars. 

“You’re dead,” he whispered brokenly, heart beating furiously on a ribcage much too small, breath stuttering. His vision blurred. 

Baskerville’s hackles rose to reveal a white row of gleaming fangs. 

“No, sweeatheart,” Not-Charles said behind him, accent perfect, tone exact. Whoever Raven was, she knew Charles. “Creatures like me don’t die. We just come back, angrier.”

Erik turned around again. Raven dissolved back into her own form and stepped away, but Alex stood, hands in his pockets, relaxed. His features were Alex’, but the expression. The cold, cold eyes and the mocking cold smile. 

“You look somewhat lessened, darling,” he said, and it was Charles in Alex’ mouth. “Years don’t seem to have been kind to you.” 

“Leave the boy,” Erik said numbly. 

“Alex and I are friends,” Charles said, smiling with Alex’ lips. “I met him before you did.” 

Erik nodded. “A spy.”

“A weapon,” Charles admitted. “He begged me to use him. So I did. You see, Division framed his brother Scott. We managed to save him before you sank your claws into him.” 

“What have you done to—to the others—“

“I told them the truth. All of it. Even the truths not even you know.” 

Erik realized he was shaking violently. It wasn’t the cold. He was terrified. Baskerville circled wide around him, eyes bright red, growling loudly. Erik eyed him. 

“You could have killed me then and you didn’t.”

Alex-Charles smiled bitterly. “That was then. This is now.”

Baskerville leapt. Erik was unconscious before he hit the ground, and he hit it hard.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEWARE. There is a lot of violence in this chapter. Charles goes full-out sociopath. I'm not kidding, guys. This chapter descends entirely into horror and Dark!Charles. Read at your own risk. 
> 
> And we get to meet the real Erik which is not... a walk in the park.

Charles was sitting to one of the patio tables, legs crossed elegantly as he sipped tea and read the newspaper. 

“You look almost civilized,” Raven said, dropping into a chair across from him. 

The telepath smiled at her, “Thank you. I do try.”

“I put your gift in one of the containment cells in the basement.”

Charles hummed thoughtfully and sipped from his cup, eyes scanning a particular newspaper note. Tony Stark’s glorious eruption back into society and technological development areas. Fascinating. Charles’ personal phone had five missed calls. Probably four of them were Tony, and one was his brand new SHIELD approved assistant, Pepper Potts. Tony kept insisting adamantly that Charles should come work with him. There had also been some sort of invitation to a sexual relationship in there somewhere, he was sure. Unless Tony really did mean to use him as inspiration to design an artificial intelligence unit with a British accent. 

Raven looked at him shrewdly. “I think he’d dying, you know.” 

“Right now, or in a general stretch of time?” his cornflower-blue eyes, the same color of her skin, flicked up to her face. “In general terms, we’re all dying.” 

“Well, while the rest of us reluctantly crawl, I think he’d diving.”

“Oh,” Charles put down his cup. “Alex told me, yes. It’s the brain damage, you understand. Not even someone with his, hm, physical enhancements, shall we call it, can survive too long with that sort of daily treatment. Eleven years is quite extraordinary.” 

“Frost is really crude. I thought you said she was very powerful.”

“She is powerful,” Charles folded the newspaper neatly and dropped it on the table. As he angled his head to face her better, the light caught his right eye, like tinted glass. His lips quirked up in a smile. “Very powerful indeed. But she is—coarse. Unrefined.”

“How come, though? I thought she was as old as you are.”

“Let us say I had special training during my early childhood,” Charles smirked. “Say, is the fine Agent McTaggert around this afternoon?”

“She was looking for you.”

Charles arched his brows, “And you, who knew where I was, failed to tell her because…?”

Raven shrugged. 

“Right. Well, I assume she wants to speak to me about our ‘joint efforts concerning Lehnsherr’.”

“She does love that phrase.”

“Joint efforts,” sighed Charles, leaning back slightly to straighten his shirt, even though it still looked perfectly fine, tailored to fit him just right. 

“Are you going to kill him?” asked Raven. 

Charles leaned his chin on his palm, eyes rolling up to stare at a passing cloud. New Mexico in the winter. Cold but peaceful. 

“I haven’t decided yet,” he admitted. “I’ll know when I see him.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

Raven turned her hands in her lap and studied her palms for a moment, blue as the sky above them. 

“He seems like a nice guy. He was genuinely worried about me.”

“Nothing about him is genuine,” murmured Charles, eyes flicking to her, cold as ice. “He’s been manufactured to act as he does. Lenient, peaceful, meek.”

She frowned. “How do you know that for sure, though?”

Charles though of the things he had seen in Erik’s mind, or his broken down memories, his leashed temper. His nightmares. “I know.” 

“And are you really going to kill him, then? For what he did to you?”

Charles sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers in his lap. He gave her a long, unreadable look. 

“And if I said I will?” he asked quietly. “Would you tell me that I am not cold about this, would you encourage me to step away from the anger, would you give me a heartfelt plea for his life, knowing that there was once love between he and I?”

Raven rolled her eyes, hands curling into fists. “I just don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret.”

“Regret is a human emotion.” 

“Yeah, well, you’re not _completely_ heartless.”

Charles blinked slowly, thinking of all the different layers in Raven’s mind. Memories, character, reactions, emotions, gift. How easily they would unravel, with just one well-placed pull. People fell apart so easily once you tugged at the seams. Like sand between his fingers. Pluck out one memory, and watch the whole mind disentangle into madness, as easily as tapestry. 

“Perhaps not entirely,” he said thoughtfully. 

It would not do to let raven believe he cared for her, but her gift, unlike Alex’s was still useful to him. Alex had done his part, played out his role. But Raven, and Raven’s glorious mutation—that he could still use. 

“I suppose I ought to see to that,” he murmured, folding the napkin he had on his lap and dropping it on the table. 

He rose and nodded at Raven, walking inside the building as he buttoned up his suit jacket. The agents and soldiers he passed nodded at him, respectful but distant, which was just as Charles liked them. He’d tried trust once. It hadn’t gone very well for him. 

He sent out one single pulse of telepathy out as he rode the elevator down to the basements, just out of habit. Agent Clint Barton, stationed on the research facility below to overlook some sort of cosmic cube S.H.I.E.L.D. had unwisely decided to play with, still strongly disliked him. No news there. The man had sense. He was coarse and violent, but not without intelligence. Charles liked him well enough. He’d come in handy, perhaps. 

Agent Smith wanted Charles to fuck him again. Also no news there. Charles grimaced. That had been a indulgence he would not soon repeat, but it wasn’t severe enough that he could justify damaging the man’s mind by erasing the whole incident. If he did, the little scar he’d left in the back of his neck would be difficult to explain. 

The doors opened and Charles strolled out into the basement corridor. The first thing he was faced with was a frowning agent Moira McTaggert. 

“Moira,” he smiled pleasantly. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

“Thank you for deciding to stop ignoring me,” she sighed. “We have Lehnsherr in custody, though I’m sure Raven told you already.”

“Indeed.”

Moira crossed her arms as she lead him down the corridor to the containment cells. “I know you probably want to see him immediately, but Charles, maybe you should wait. We took precautions, but his physical state is—precarious. We didn’t dare give him another dose of the suppressant. His mutation might come back at any moment. It would be dangerous for you to go in now.”

“Oh, you mustn’t worry for my safety. I can suppress his gift directly.”

Moira stared at him. “You didn’t tell me you could do that.”

“Did I not? It must have slipped my mind.”

They stopped in front of a closed door, and Charles knew they had arrived at their destination. He could sense Erik’s mind at the other side of the wall, broken and jagged like shards of glass. It made his teeth hurt, the dissonance of memories and character.

“Yes. I’m sure that’s precisely what happened,” said Moira, voice flat. “If you insist on seeing him now, can I ask you what precisely you’re going to do?”

“Why,” Charles gave her a mild look. “I intend to fix his broken mind, just as I have said.” 

“Yes, but how?”

Charles showed his teeth. It couldn’t be called a smile. 

“By bringing down the barriers in his mind, of course.” 

Moira raised a hand to stop him, but Charles ignored her and, wrapping his hand around the doorknob, he pulled the door open. As he crossed the doorway, Baskerville materialized at his side, flames licking up his wolf-life frame. 

Charles let the door closed behind him, standing still just inside the room. As it closed, displaced air brushed down the back of his neck. 

Erik lay on the floor, afforded apparently not the smallest courtesies. Alex’s preference, most likely. He was on his side, hands cuffed behind his back. Charles’ brilliant eidetic memory threw a memory of the man the last time he had seen him, to compare with what was behind him now. 

Well. Erik certainly _had_ deteriorated. He had to have lost several pounds, and since he had nothing to spare even then when we were together, that had most likely been muscle weight. He looked miserably thin and wretchedly pale. His hair was shorter than ever. Charles stared at him for a long time. 

Baskerville moved closer, sniffing the air. Ah, blood. There was none on Erik’s face, but someone might have done him the courtesy of cleaning his upper lip. Before dumping him on the floor in a cold cell. Small favors. 

The hound growled slightly and sent out a pulse of telepathy that jarred Erik’s mind awake. Charles gripped the back of the chair by the wall and moved it in front of the metallokinetic. Just as he did, he reached out with his mind to interrupt the link between mutation and conscious mind—only to find it, to his surprise, frayed almost entirely to nothing. What had once been a healthy, shining link was now nothing more than a decaying thread. That gave Charles pause as he set the chair down. A pang of—what was that? 

Pity, probably. Erik had had a glorious gift. Charles wondered if he would recover it, once his mind healed. If it healed. 

Erik’s eyes blinked open. He was, as always, immediately lucid. 

“This,” Charles said, sitting down on the one chair and crossing his legs. “is pleasantly symmetric, don’t you agree?”

Erik didn’t answer.

“I’m just saying,” Charles continued. “Tit for tat, old friend.”

It took a long moment for Erik to answer. He wouldn’t look up to Charles, choosing instead to continue staring at the floor, as if the sight of the telepath might prove somewhat difficult. Which was fitting, Charles supposed, considering how they had last parted. If, indeed, _parted_ could be the term applied to it. 

“Are you going to kill me?” Erik asked at last. He sounded tired, voice rough. 

Erik closed his eyes, pressed his face to the cold cement of the floor.

“Then why not do it already? One bullet, clean death—I gave you that much, Charles. You owe me.”

Baskerville’s growl nearly drowned any other sound in Charles’ head. He had to cut a harsh glare to the hound, and have him simmer down. The creature, rage and hate caught aflame, walked slowly behind Charles’ chair and sank down to the floor, head on his crossed front paws. 

“Oh, yes,” Charles said softly, silkily. “One bullet—I remember. Three years of my life, gone. Yes—I owe you _so much_.”

Erik gritted his teeth, struggling to sit up, an impossibility given the way he was tied up. Charles felt his mind struggle to find his gift, and fail. Surely Erik knew by now that he could not access it freely anymore. To seek it out now was pointless. Still, Charles supposed old habits died hard, and hope—the most pointless habit of all—died last. Erik struggled for a moment, mind nearly unhinging, and finally surrendered. 

“I never took away your powers,” he said tiredly.

Charles blinked. _He_ hadn’t taken away Erik’s gift. Certainly he would have, if he had still had it, to ensure his own safety, but that had not been the case. Erik seems—confused. Unfocused. Charles wondered just how fractured his mind was, and did not bother to check.

“I hope you’re not complaining that I’m not treating you justly,” he said, arching a brow. “Because after you shot me in the back of the head, I might just find you slightly hypocritical.”

A long pause.

“I made you into this,” Erik said quietly.

Well. Technically Brian Xavier had made him into this, but. Erik had had a rather key role in making him this angry, this thirsty of violent revenge, so it was not entirely misplaced for him to take on some of the guilt. 

“Yes,” Charles nodded thoughtfully. 

“There was a time, not so long ago, where you might have found it within yourself to forgive me,” Erik sighed, going limp against his bonds on the floor. He sounded exhausted, as if drained of all energy, and no wonder. He was, after all, dying. 

Charles saw Erik’s grey eyes move slowly over him, as if noticing the differences between the man he remembered and the man he now had before him. Charles knew them well enough. Three years in a coma and two years of demanding physical therapy had left him little more than muscle and sinew. He’d never been this thin. It didn’t suit him, he knew; it made his face too sharp and brought out his eyes too much. Made him—remarkable. Charles didn’t like being remarkable. 

But what he’d lost, more than weight, more than time or, for a desperately long time, the use of his legs, had been what little mercy and willingness—ability even, perhaps—to forgive he had once had. 

He caught it, then—a fleeting image of Erik’s mind, of Charles beneath him in the bead, a smile like a knife and eyes iridescent blue. 

“That Charles Xavier is dead,” he said pensively, thinking of that image. “You put a bullet through him, remember?”

Erik closed his eyes.

 _I’m sorry, old friend_ , Charles whispered into his mind, caress-soft. _But this was a long time coming_.  
Baskerville’s great head lifted as Charles got to his feet. He leaned down and, crouching, he wrapped his hands around Erik’s shoulders and helped him sit up, long legs stretched out in front of him. The metallokinetic went willingly, apparently somewhat grateful that he’d be dying sitting up rather than lying on his side like a vegetable. 

“Telepathy, then?” he asked and, unexpectedly dropped his head forward to Charles’ shoulder. The telepath froze. He felt Baskerville waver in and out of existence, unsure. But soon enough he settled, solid, fire black like onyx. 

Charles shifted, settling with his knees at either side of Erik’s legs. He brought his hands up to Erik’s neck and pushed him back against the wall, letting his head roll back. Erik stared at him from beneath his heavy0lided grey-blue eyes, and for a moment—thin and broken and pale as death—he looked beautiful. 

“Of course,” Charles murmured. He slid his hands up to cup the back of Erik’s head, thumbs against the cold skin before his ears. 

Erik inhaled deeply. “Will it hurt?” 

But Charles was already half-gone, mind spreading open to wrap like the leather wings of a dragon around Erik’s. To contain, first. And then—raze. 

Distracted, careless, he answered only “Yes.” Before he plunged into the man’s mind, slicing through the first layer of shielding, the natural one, the construction of character and temper Erik himself had built. This was familiar enough for both of them. Erik’s breath caught, eyes flying open. Charles pushed aside individual natural defenses and reached down deeper, through wraps of psyche and—there. Implanted memories. Ah. 

Baskerville dissolved. Charles felt the surge of his own gift as it returned to him, turning away from the illusion of materialization and into raw power, like a great wave of water overlapping a smaller one. He took the power, turned it and honed it into a blade, and emptied it entirely into Baskerville, inside his own mind. A weapon as powerful as it was volatile, Baskerville knew the construction of the human mind better than Charles’ conscious mind would ever manage. 

The telepath inhaled, just as Erik gasped. 

_Go._

Erik flinched. For a moment, he was still. At last, he started shaking violently, almost coming apart beneath Charles. Blood began running, first a trickle, then a stream, from his nose. Charles ignored it. All physical damage made to his brain would repair itself, given enough time. 

Probably. 

The man had lived almost one hundred years, after all, and eleven those after constantly inflicted brain damage. 

Baskerville burned up the outer shells, turned the frost upon the metal walls to steam, fading fast, and then slammed up against the walls themselves. From fire he turned to beast, and moved along the walls, dragging claws down the metal, shredding like scalpels through tin foil. At last, shedding his playfulness, he sank his claws in, and tore. 

Erik convulsed. Charles kept his head steady against the wall, hoping to avoid concussions. 

A moment of struggle, as Erik desperately tried to safeguard his mind from the assault. Baskerville paused momentarily, delightedly observing the effort. While weak, certainly it was remarkable. 

Charles sighed. _Stop playing_. 

Erik’s mind seemed to shift at the sound of his voice, recognizing it. It seemed, for a moment, as though it strained towards the sound; seeking perhaps, salvation. 

Charles let go, pulling back. Baskerville snapped free. 

The telepath sat back on his heels, sighing, blinking slowly at the dual vision. Erik’s past, unraveling at some dark corner of his own mind, veiled by Baskerville’s rampant rage and urge for destruction, as the walls tore and crumbled to dust and let loose all that had been trapped. Erik stopped moving, all but his eyes, which moved quickly, as if in a deep, vivid dream. 

Baskerville lingered, licking at the images like flames, and only when every semblance of a wall foreign to Erik’s own mind had dissolved did he pull back. The dual images disappeared. Charles found himself kneeling over a very still Erik, eyes rolling blindly. 

Blood had stained his upper lip and chin, rolled down his neck to his collarbone, where it had pooled. 

Feeling dazed himself, Charles reached out and swiped a fingertip over the blood. He flicked his eyes up to Erik’s face, preternaturally white beneath the blood painted on his face. Beneath the white light his eyes were grayer than ever, long lashes trembling as his eyes moved around quickly, wide open. 

Charles rocked forward dizzily and stroked his finger over Erik’s chin, smearing the blood down to the side. He turned his own hand around, glancing at his red-painted fingertips. He blinked at them, followed the one drop rolling down his own palm to his wrist. 

What was this? He knew tearing down those flimsy walls could not have taken such a blow to the considerable amount of power he could bring to bear, so surely this dizziness wasn’t a repercussion of his actions. Still, he felt—disturbed. Off-balance. 

Erik made a sound, too breathy to be a whimper. 

Oh. Shock. That’s what this was. 

Charles was in shock. But why? Surely the one that had sustained the worst damage from this was Erik. Charles hadn’t even exhausted himself. Baskerville still shone bright in his mind, perfectly fit. And he was, even now, keeping back all the agents, making it impossible for them to interrupt Charles. 

He got to his feet, and found to his surprise that his legs felt shaky. Unstable. Again, he found himself staring at his blood stained hand. With a grimace, he reached into his pocket and took out his handkerchief, wiping his hand with it. Glancing one last time at Erik, sitting insensate where he had left him, he paused. 

“Well,” he breathed. “I should think that makes us even.” 

And with that, she shook off the odd mood and walked to the door. Standing right in front of it he found Moira McTaggert, standing pale-faced and horrified. She brushed by him as he stepped outside. Charles paused in the corridor, expecting she’d want a word with him, and finished wiping his hand fastidiously until he made sure not a trace of blood was left. Luckily the drop had not reached his shirt cuff. 

McTaggert stormed outside, flushed violently with anger. 

“What have you done?” she demanded in a hiss. 

She was horrified. How quaint. 

Charles blinked at her. “Why, I did precisely as I said I would. I brought down the walls in his mind.”

“You said you would— _fix_ him!”

“And I did. Those walls didn’t belong there.”

“He’s bleeding out!”

“Oh, do settle down,” Charles waved a hand at her. “It’s just a nosebleed. He has those about three times a day, it’s nothing new to him.”

McTaggert made a visible effort to conquer calm, pressing his palms together and pushing her fingertips against her lips. What a peculiar habit. Charles watched, fascinated. Oh, she was even thinking to ten inside her mind. She really was quite lovely. 

“You—you—what you did to him was _monstrous_. I know you could have helped him without—without—”

“Breaking his mind open like a shell?” offered Charles, in the guise of being helpful. McTaggert paled. 

Charles turned to face her fully, sliding his hands inside his trouser pockets. “I’m curious, Moira, what exactly did you expect would happen? Did you think I would walk into that room, be assaulted by romantic feelings of regret and loss, and automatically forgive the fact he shot in the head?” 

“Under duress!” cried out Moira. “Manipulated by a telepath! You knew that!” 

“He shot me,” said Charles, silky. “Unforgivable.” 

Moira shook her head, speechless for a long moment. “You were planning to do this all along, weren’t you?”

Charles watched her for a moment, contemplative. 

“I was always going to destroy him, yes,” he murmured at last, tilting his head. “Moira, do you remember the first thing you asked me when I woke up from that coma? Do you remember what I answered?”

Moira looked as though she had slapped her across the face. “I thought… I thought that was just the anger speaking.”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” Charles nodded pleasantly. Out of the corner of his eye, Baskerville sniffed at the men rushing into the containment cell with medical equipment. “The anger speaks loudest—and harshest, of course.”

He paused, and then gave her the full impact of his direct gaze, nearly colorless in this light, he knew. As he expected, McTaggert did not flinch under his gaze. Few could boast of enough courage to face him directly, let alone after he had obviously tortured a former lover. McTaggert was made of some sort of peculiar, admirable material. 

She pulled herself together, from the depths of her horror and shock, and raised her chin. 

“So now what happens to him?” 

“Now,” Charles took a moment to consider it. Moira stared at him, speechless. “Well, now, he remembers everything he ever lived through,” he grinned. Then he winced. “Or, he dies of an embolism. Either one. I guess we’ll know come morning. Tea?”

If the look Moira was giving him was any indication, tea was a bad idea. Charles shrugged and turned away. He made it to is room without any further interruptions, even though he could tell Raven was dying to meet him and ask how things had gone.

When he got to his room, he was shaking. 

Madness. Utter madness. He did not love Erik Lehnsherr. He loved no one. Erik Lehnsherr had been a stupid, naïve mistake, an indulgence, certainly a lot more than he could afford. He’d wound up shot to the head for it, lying dead to the world in a coma for three years, trapped in a wheelchair for another year and a half, and only _now_ was he again master of his own body—and he _would_ be the master of himself. Erik Lehnsherr was _nothing_. 

Charles lifted his hands and stared at his palms. If he thought about it he could still see the path of Erik’s blood on his skin, as if it were branded into it like a tattoo that would never fade. 

He tilted his head, rolled his eyes to the side to the wide, clear window that overlooked the compound. 

He could feel it under his fingertips like the frail trembling of a newborn pup faced with the cold wind of the world outside its mother. Erik’s mind, tearing itself apart. He’d blocked it from his own, kept it back, but still there it was, like an old movie reel waiting to be dusted and watched. His mind remembered it. He could feel it at the back of his throat, he taste of blood-copper and ash, and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh, and screams of people dying that he had never heard. 

_Alles is gut._

“No,” he said, and gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. The walls he slammed down on those memories, foreign and dark and sharp like the claws of a dragon, were impenetrable. Whatever of Erik’s mind had impregnated his own subsided. 

“Rot,” Charles muttered, shrugging off his suit jacket. He remembered the flash of pain before dark, the bullet that should have ended it. All of it Erik’s fault. “Rot, and I’ll be _glad_ for it.”

And that, most definitely, would be _that_. 

Even if whatever Charles had left bleeding on the floor of that containment cell survived—unlikely—it would obviously not be Erik Lehnsherr. Max Eisenhardt, perhaps? Whatever was left of him. No matter. Charles’ lover was most assuredly dead.

“And all the better for it,” he murmured, sinking to the edge of the bed and indulging, for a moment, in dropping his head to his hands. He felt scraped raw to the bone, nothing left, nothing left. Despair. 

All the better for it, if he was dead and gone. Let him have that peace, if only Charles wasn’t so bloody fucking desperate to live, he would have ended himself and let the world be rid of the plague he was, long ago. But he did want to live He wanted t live with the burning intensity of a hundred thousand stars, and nothing, nothing that ever happened to him—not his father’s torture, not his mother’s suicide, not his twisted stepfather and the violence if his stepbrother, not Erik’s puppet-like betrayal—none of that had even robbed him of that will. 

Charles Xavier wanted to live, and let the world burn around him that tried to say otherwise. He would raze it to the ground and salt its remains, and live forever over its ashes listening to its wails—and _he_ would live. 

He sighed, shoulder slumping. He hoped Erik’s carcass _did_ die. Maybe he should have ensured it. Built the aneurysm, created the clog. Maybe he should have ended it. 

Then again, perhaps it would end itself. 

Charles shrugged, got up and finished undressing, and then he got into bed and he slept, dreamless and restful. He woke up feeling much better. 

Kurt was back for breakfast. 

“I went to the Great Wall of China,” he said excitedly. 

“Oh?” Charles smiled, putting aside his book. “Do tell.”

The teleporter went on about it in detail, about how lovely and ancient and imposing it was, and how he would love to take Charles with him whenever Charles felt like it. He was such an earnest, soft child. Endearing, even. 

Moira dropped by the table briefly, pale-faced, eyes hard. 

“Lehnsherr is in a coma,” she said flatly. “I hope that _pleases_ you.”

“I do appreciate the symmetry,” admitted Charles. 

“If he dies, all of this will have been for nothing!”

“Not for nothing, dear,” replied Charles, sipping his tea. “I’ll have had my revenge, which to me, you understand, is quite valuable; and you, Moira, will be rid of one more murdering psychopath. Why, is that not in your mission statement somewhere? Is it?” he asked Kurt, turning to him. 

“I did not read it,” blinked the blue mutant. 

“I don’t think anybody ever does read those sort of things,” said Charles, thoughtful. “You might consider stop printing them, Moira—oh, she left. Pity.” 

The day continued in its usual fashion, or what passed as usual fashion in the New Mexico S.H.I.E.L.D. compound which was, unsurprisingly, not standard military operations. 

Two nights later, Charles’ telepathic spider-web flared to life and woke him seconds before Moira was knocking insistently on his door. Charles got up, made himself presentable, and open the door to a face-full of infuriated agent. 

“I don’t think staying up late is good for your skin complexion, darling. You look somewhat the worse for wear.”

Moira’s jaw worked. “Lehnsherr is awake.”

“Oh, how nice. Thank you for letting me know.”

“He’s wrecking the facility, asking to see you immediately. I tried to tell him you don’t want him near, but he doesn’t listen. He says he’ll kill every single human in this place unless I let him see you.”

Charles allowed himself a sigh. He went back into his room to put on his shoes and grab a jacket to put over his shirt. Moira followed him in, tense and angry. 

“Why did you do this to him?”

“I wanted to,” answered Charles, unapologetic and straightforward. “I wanted to hurt him, and I could, so I did. I never promised you I wouldn’t.” 

“I expected more from you.”

“Moira,” Charles straightened, giving her a cold, hard look. “Trust me when I say, regardless of your expectations, you will always get _more_ from me, rather than less. Now take me to Erik so I can put an end to this and go back to bed.”

Whatever had taken possession of Erik Lehnsherr—Charles didn’t think he would correctly call this creature Erik, but he didn’t think he could take the liberty to call it Max, either—had taken control of the entire first sub-basement main control room, which was vast. It had turned into some sort of metallic tornado, with all sort of things flying around the central axis which, presumably, was Erik himself. Charles was quite certain there was a sword there somewhere. 

He rolled his eyes and snapped his telepathy forward, forcing the mind at the center of the metallic storm to bow to his own will. 

The objects dropped unceremoniously to the ground. 

In the center of the ring of wreckage, Erik stood, bone-thin and grim. The harsh white light gave his face a very sharp, hard quality, and his eyes were as grey as the cement of the walls. Something shone in their depths, though, something—unsettling. 

“Charles,” he greeted neutrally. 

“Mr. Lehnsherr,” Charles smiled. “I hear you’ve been requesting my presence. Now that you demands have been satisfied, perhaps you could dispense with this _tantrum_ , and let us all go back t our beds like civilized people.”

“ _I_ throw tantrums?” asked not-Erik, seemingly amused, through his eyes seemed to glitter with hate. “Did you not, just days ago, try to break my mind into shards?”

“I’m so gratified to see it didn’t work,” Charles smiled again. 

“Yes,” said not-Erik, flatly. “I am sure ‘gratified’ is the first word that comes to your twisted, deformed mind.” 

“Now,” Charles lifted a single, slim finger. “No need to be unpleasant.” 

Not-Erik seemed momentarily overcome by the urge to tear Charles from limb to limb—but then, unexpectedly, his face split into a grin. Charles felt a shiver run down his spine. There were mad, burning anger there—and as mad and burning as it was, it was tightly, perfectly controlled. 

“To borrow a word from you, perhaps you will dispense,” he said sweetly. “With the humans.”

“I doubt that’ll be necessary,” answered the telepath. “You wanted to see me; you have seen me. I say we call it a night.”

Charles turned around to leave, and one of the decimated metal desks plunged into the cement right in front of him, erupting in metal spikes sharp enough to easily impale a man. 

“Get rid of the humans.”

Charles did not like to be given orders, and he did not like people who felt entitled to give them to him. 

He turned around and gave Erik a long, cold look. 

“I believe we are done here, Mr. Lehnsherr.”

“ _I_ believe,” countered Erik, walking casually closer, and the wreckage opened in front of him like the parting of the red sea to let him pass unobstructed. He moved differently, Charles realized; there was a new kind of energy to him, less economic, more fluid. Charles was struck by how graceful he was. “That after shredding my mind to bits just two days ago, _you_ don’t get to say when we’re done at _anything_.”

He stopped a few feet from Charles, letting his hands rest on his hops, he wore only a thin t-shirt and sweatpants, and he was barefoot, but he looked about as vulnerable as a furious lion. 

Moira stepped forward. “Mr. Lehnsherr—“ 

“Quiet,” murmured Erik, without even glancing at her. “Charles, we are having this conversation tonight. We can have it here, after or before I slaughter every single pathetic human in this facility—or we can have it _privately_.”

Charles weighed his options. He could push against this new creature, or he could fold with grace and spare himself the bloodbath. He could tell this new and debatably improved Erik Lehnsherr wouldn’t think twice about the slaughter, and Charles had never liked the smell of blood, it turned his stomach. 

He spread his hands. “Let’s adjourn to my room, for whatever you may possibly have to say to me appears to be rather private for you.”

Erik nodded his head as if conceding to the point. His entire mannerisms and attitudes had changed dramatically. 

“Charles,” Moira laid her hand lightly on the telepath’s arm. “I don’t think this is a good idea. He assaulted five agents; he’s dangerous and—“

“I don’t need to be dangerous to assault five of your sorry agents,” interrupted Erik, suddenly looming right at Charles’ side, eyes wide and smile sharp. “They are pitiable. Remove your hand, or I remove it from your arm.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Moira withdrew her hand, hesitant. The moment she had moved away, Erik grabbed Charles’ arm and started walking, nearly dragging him along. Charles, all too aware of their height and strength differences and how undignified he would look if he struggled, discreetly tugged his arm away. Erik’s fingers were like iron, and at any attempt to dislodge them, they tightened painfully. 

At the third attempt, he pulled Charles in close and the expression he had, inches away from Charles face, could not even affectionately be called a smile. There were, however, teeth involved. 

“Show me to your room.”

Charles gritted his teeth. “If you would kindly let go of my arm,” he hissed. 

Erik’s fingers tightened. Charles bit back a gasp of pain. He blocked out the entire nerve instead, grim, and started leading Erik down the corridor to the elevator. Once in the small space of the lift, Erik finally did release him—clearly because he felt like it and not because it was giving Charles any sort of discomfort. The message was clear.

Charles could, of course, lobotomize him. But he didn’t. That, itself, was probably telling enough. Charles knew he should be on his guard, but he was intrigued, curious about this new Erik. He wanted to see how he handled himself. And the man was right; they needed to talk, and they would, and they might as well do so now. 

“I have to say considering the attitude I remember,” Erik said conversationally as they stepped out into the fourth floor, where Charles’ room was located. “I would expect you to demand better accommodations.”

“This is just temporary, you understand,” replied Charles. “I have no intentions of staying with S.H.I.E.L.D. forever.”

“Of course.”

Charles stepped inside his room first, and what a stupid mistake to put his back to Erik. He was still suffering from the illusion that the old Erik—the Erik that had been a sweet, doting lover—would not hurt him, but this one clearly had no such compunctions. 

Charles hit the wall face-first, and gasped when his arm was twisted harshly behind his back. 

“This is how this is going to go,” Erik murmured calmly in his ear. “If you call in a single person to interrupt up, I tear them apart. If you try to leave this room before I’m done talking, I break one of your fingers. The second attempt, I break a bigger bone. And so on. Are we clear, _Charles_?”

Charles gritted his teeth against the sudden, tear-jerking pain. 

“Yes.”

Baskerville materialized at their side, hackles rising in a long, thundering growl, and Erik turned his head sharply towards the hound. 

“ _Sit._ ”

Baskerville froze, flame flickering. Charles felt fear crawling up his spine as the hounds’ ear swiveled back, uncertain. Erik leaned down towards the creature. 

“Away.”

The hound whined, ears flattening down and, in one shocking urge of telepathy that left Charles reeling with backlash—dissolved. 

Just like that, Erik was gone, across the room. He paused momentarily, and then started pacing; slowly, looking at things, if only in passing, uninterested glances. It was clear where his attention was pinned. Charles saw the door close and heard the tumblers fall in place—and then steam came out of the keyhole. 

“Did you just melt the door mechanism?”

“You don’t need to be out of this room,” answered Erik distractedly. 

His eyes, previously wondering the windowsill, pinned Charles to the wall he was leaning back against. 

“You told Summers I betrayed you.”

Right down to business, then. Charles straightened away from the wall, because he believed in taking fights, even verbal ones, standing firm on his own two feet. 

“You did betray me.”

“Frost twisted up my mind that night and you know it.”

“You put a bullet in me and gave me up for dead.”

“Frost made me believe you were working for this bullshit spy agency all along and passing them information to have us all killed.” 

“And you believed her, of course.”

“You say it as if I had any sort of choice,” snapped Erik. “When you know perfectly well that I did not.”

“You could have talked to me,” said Charles. “I don’t know what kind of person you are, but the Erik I took to bed certainly would have stopped five minutes to _talk_ about something before shooting someone.”

“If you liked that Erik so much, then maybe you should have abstained from _shredding_ him.”

Charles laughed. “It doesn’t matter what I did to your mind. I saved your life. If I hadn’t pulled down those walls, you’d be bleeding out through your nose and imitating a vegetable.” 

Erik was suddenly on him again, shoving him against the wall, pressing his shoulders to it. His eyes were narrowed. 

“How did you survive?”

The abrupt change of direction threw Charles off. 

“What is that inside your skull? Is that a titanium plate?”

“You’ll notice it’s right where you shot me,” sneered Charles. “Not a coincidence.”

“I shot you, your destroyed my mind, we both lived,” Erik shrugged. “Let’s call it even.” 

Charles was struck momentarily speechless. 

“That’s not really what I’ve been thinking about,” continued Erik, leaning closer. “You told me, right before you left that evening, you told me—that you loved me. I don’t doubt that it was true, so don’t bother denying it now, you’ll just embarrass yourself. I know how you’re not fond of making the fool.” 

“Ah, well, a lot of things change after a bullet, and three years in a coma.”

“Right, of course.”

“And there is, I hate to point out the little detail, of—“

Erik’s hand cut off his voice, wrapping around his throat tight enough to interrupt him without, yet, choking him. 

“You still love me.”

Charles laughed breathlessly. “I’d kill you as soon as look at you.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Erik easily. “Or you would have.”

That sat heavy between them, like the anchor of a great vessel sinking into the ocean. Charles felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. 

“You don’t hate me,” murmured Erik, almost tenderly, tightening his fingers around Charles’ throat. “You’re not even angry at me. You know Frost outsmarted you, and you hate she used me to do it, but that’s not why you destroyed that little docile Erik you loved so much.”

He leaned in closer, eyes silver in the moonlight. “You should have killed me that night before I put a bullet in your skull. But you didn’t. Because you _love me_. And it burns you inside, doesn’t it? That you chose _me_ over yourself. That you _let me kill you_.” 

“But you’re not that Erik,” whispered Charles, feeling cold crawl up his spine, and in its tail end, in its wake, came something else. Hot and thrilling. 

“No,” Erik smiled, a smile full of violence and poison. “That Erik is dead. Well done. I hope you’re proud.”

He moved away, slowly, slowly, prowling like a feline; anger and power coiled beneath the skin. When he reached the windowsill, he leaned down to look at the small ceramic dog. 

“What’s this?”

Charles glanced over, massaging the tingling skin of his neck. He’d be wearing a necklace of bruises come morning. He wasn’t sure he minded. 

“Jean gave it to me.” 

Erik reached out a finger, tipped the dog over so it smashed into a thousand glittering pieces on the floor. 

“I liked that,” said Charles mildly. 

Erik kicked the largest fragment beneath the bed. Then, a moment of absolute stillness, and suddenly his face whipped around to glare at Charles over his right shoulder. 

“More than my scar?” 

“No, Erik,” Charles rolled his eyes. “I’m sure no one will ever give me a scar and a titanium skull plate as handsome as yours.” 

Erik made a contemplative noise and crouched down to pick up the little dog’s head. He studied it between his fingers for a moment, and then threw it away against the wall. He stood again, languid and graceful, and smiled at Charles. 

He stalked closer again, until he was looming over Charles, settling his hands on the wall at either side of his head. He leaned in, close enough their lips almost brushed. Charles felt the heat coiling slow at the bottom of his stomach begin to grow, like the fanned flames of a fire. Erik’s right hand slid from the wall to Charles’ throat, palm warm and dry against his Adam’s apple. 

“You called me a lamb, once,” he murmured. 

“You were a lamb, then,” whispered Charles, hands coming up to Erik’s flanks. Almost immediately his left shot to the wall—trapped there by his watch. Erik’s other hand caught Charles’ left, and pinned it to the wall. 

“Who’s the lamb now?” Erik smiled, sharp and poisonous. 

Charles sneered, lashed forward and severed the link between Erik’s mind and his gift. His right hand fell free from the wall. He went to push Erik off, but the metallokinetic’s right hand tightened dangerously on his throat, close to interrupting his breath. Charles would be speaking in broken threads of voice the next day. 

Erik’s eyes were bright this close. “Give it back.” 

“Don’t use it against me.”

The man chuckled, mocking. “Very well. A compromise. I don’t use my gift _against you_ , and you don’t use _yours_ against me. Acceptable?”

“Tolerable,” sighed Charles, withdrawing the block so Erik’s gift shone bright, again. It truly was a breathtaking thing, blushing gold and supple across the man’s mind, illuminating every corner. Things the Erik Charles knew had never even though about were thrown in sharp relief under this new light. It was—stunning. 

“But as I last remember it,” Erik continued, shifting his hand to drag a thumb down the line of Charles’ jaw, leaning his face close enough that his nose brushed against Charles’ cheek. “You _liked_ me using my gift around you.” 

“Just not against me, you dull oaf.”

Erik surged forward, mouth descending onto Charles’ painfully as he pulled him forward and up with the hand on his neck. Charles’ right hand fisted on Erik’s t-shirt, and for a moment stayed there, undecided. Then he was pulling him closer, arching into him. Erik stepped in and crushed him against the wall, kissing him almost savagely, much more teeth than tongue. It was violent and rough, and Charles, who despised being marked in visible places, knew he should stop the brute, but—but. 

Erik’s hands released him and sneaked beneath the jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. Charles racked up Erik’s t-shirt and felt the skin on Erik’s flanks, stretched taut over hard muscles. Sliding them up, he found his ribs, pronounced, close under the skin. 

Erik pulled back to pull his t-shirt off and throw it away, and then swooped back in to start unbuttoning Charles’ shirt. 

“It’s the middle of the bloody night,” he growled, shoving Charles’ hips back against the wall. “Why are you wearing a button-up?”

“I have standards, and they’re a little higher than a shirt and sweatpants.”

Erik smiled sweetly—and ripped the shirt down, sending buttons flying everywhere. Charles slapped him across the face. Erik’s grin was ferocious. He bent down to kiss Charles full on the mouth, and when the telepath bit him, drawing blood, he chuckled indulgently. 

“Alright,” he said silkily. He gripped Charles’ arm and shoved him harshly towards the table. Charles braced himself against it, panting. Even attempting to deny this wasn’t setting his blood on fir would have been foolish; he already ached and Erik hadn’t even touched him. 

Charles was an omega telepath. He had no limits; nothing could stop. 

Physically, of course, matters were different, and that disparity, and the fact Erik could use it so easily, was exhilarating. 

Erik wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pushed him down so he leaned on his elbows, pressed tight chest to back. His other hand encircled Charles’ right wrist, squeezing. Charles’ belt buckle was undoing itself. The light of Erik’s gift raced across his mind like veins of gold, hot and bright. Charles gasped. He was dizzy with it, with how beautiful Erik’s mutation was. 

Momentarily dazed, he barely noticed what Erik was doing until he’d pulled back and dragged his pants and underwear down his legs.

“Finish this,” he growled, pushing away to take off his sweatpants. Charles’ arms were slightly unsteady as he straightened, but he didn’t hesitate in taking off his shoes and socks and stepping out of his pants. 

Almost at once Erik was on him again, pushing him against the window so the heated skin of his back collided with the cold glass. Charles inhaled sharply and almost choked on the breath when Erik gripped his erection, pumping it mercilessly, too fast and too tight. Charles arched against him, almost, almost, trying to escape. Erik growled and bit his bottom lip savagely, splitting it and licking up the blood. He crossed his forearm across Charles chest and pressed him against the glass, panting harshly against his mouth. 

“You better have something to ease the way,” he said roughly. “Because I’m fucking you either way.” 

“Bedside table drawer,” managed the telepath. 

The drawer yanked open from across the room, presumably controlled by its metal nails and handle, and floated quickly towards them. Erik glanced inside, reached in and gripped the tube of lube. The drawer dropped noisily to the table. 

Erik’s face was inches away from Charles’. 

“Turn around.” 

Charles smiled, “Make me.”

Erik grinned. “My little wolf,” he said fondly, and his hand wrapped around Charles’ neck again. He leaned in close and snarled, “Turn around _now_.”

Charles felt a thrilled, a rope of heat curling down his spine. Erik released him and he turned around, leaning his forehead against the cool glass. 

“And this way everyone can see you,” murmured Erik in his ear, as Charles felt the tell-tale sounds of him slicking up his fingers. 

“Nonsense,” breathed Charles, sending out a pulse of telepathy to block whomever might be walking around to block out his window. 

Erik’s fingers twisted in his head to pull his head back. The tip of a finger breached Charles, but despite the suddenness, the movements were careful. 

“Let them _see_ ,” he cooed in Charles’ ear. “I want them to know you’re mine.” 

“Oh, _fuck you_ ,” Charles wrenched his head away, almost pulling a neck muscle. “I’m not—“

Erik’s fingers were doing something indescribable to him. He couldn’t quite put together the words anymore. 

“You _are_ ,” growled Erik, and dipped down to bite harshly at the nape of Charles’ neck. 

Charles was going to snap at him to stop, but Erik pulled his fingers out and replaced them with his erection, pushing in in one long, sweet movement. Charles’ breath hitched. Erik’s hands fell to his hips, holding them still as he pulled out and pushed in again, setting from the start a demanding, harsh rhythm. Charles braced his elbows against the galls, head dropping forward between them as he struggled for breath. Erik licked the back of his neck, following the line of his spine down as far as he could reach, licking up the salty sweat. Whenever he felt like it, he bit sharply at the places where the bone was closest to the skin, bruising it. 

“If you let her touch you again,” he panted against Charles shoulder. “I’ll tear her apart.” 

Charles frowned and turned to look at him over his shoulder. “I haven’t slept with McTaggert, you imbecile.”

“And you won’t,” Erik said fiercely, eyes feverish. 

“I’ll do whatever I want,” snapped Charles. 

Erik sank his fingertips painfully into the skin as Charles’ stomach, then dragged them down to his erection. 

“You won’t,” he snarled, thrusting in, unforgiving. Charles had to turn away to struggle for breath. Erik took the opportunity to lick up the drop of sweat rolling down from his temple, and then find his ear and tug as his lobe, almost playful, even as his hand stroked him to whatever rhythm he wanted, which was not the one Charles liked. Except he did like it. 

“She won’t touch you again,” Erik insisted. 

“She won’t,” breathed Charles, dizzy. 

Erik made a sound of pleasure, and straightened, thrusting violently. A moment later; he stilled, curving down around Charles to press his forehead against the telepath’s shoulder, shuddering. Charles felt the wild, white-out flare of a pleasure so deep it was almost painful, as he climaxed. He was left dazed with it, disoriented by its intensity. 

He didn’t come down from it until he felt Erik pull out; felt the unpleasant, repulsive feeling of Erik’s semen running down the insides of his own legs. 

“Damnit,” he muttered, elbowing Erik away. The metallokinetic paid no heed, establishing a rather disturbing pattern that would most likely not soon be interrupted, and instead trailed his hand down Charles stomach—and found his cock, hard and hot. He made an inquisitive noise as he straightened. 

“What do you need to finish?”

Charles made a vague noise of disgruntlement, too busy feeling disgusted by the come rolling warm down the insides of his thighs to listen. 

The new Erik did not appreciate being ignored. He gripped Charles by the arm and dragged him to the bed, pushing down on his back unceremoniously before climbing on top, straddling his thighs. Taking him in hand, he started stroking up, twisting his hand up around the head in a ay that made Charles’ knees jerk. 

“Well? Are you going to tell me what you want?”

 _Shut up_ , sent Charles, piercing like a blade. Erik set his teeth against the pain, but he absorbed it automatically, and grinned. 

“Alright.”

He shifted down, and in one easy motion took Charles’ cock into his mouth. Charles was reeling. Erik had no intentions of teasing; he sucked and stroked and bobbed his head like he meant business, all the while thinking a constant stream of filthy, obscene things he meant to do to the telepath. 

It didn’t take long before Charles was arching up, twisting his hands in the sheets and coming copiously into Erik’s mouth. The man swallowed without complaint, pressing his hand flat against Charles’ belly to enjoy the tremors of climax, and to make it last longer. 

Only when Charles had gone limp and twitchy did he let him fall from his mouth, and then he climbed up to kiss him, smiling. Charles turned his head away, complaining about the taste; Erik gripped his jaw and kissed him deeply, suckling at the cut he’d made earlier with his teeth. Charles decided that surrendering was the wisest option, and humored him, parting his lips and stroking his sweaty flank. 

Erik made a sound of contentment and climbed off the bed, bending down to pick up something and returning to kneel between Charles’ spread thighs. The telepath lifted his head curiously. 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he growled roughly, when he realized it was his own shirt. 

Erik grinned and industriously used the shirt to clean Charles’ inner thighs, even going as far as perfunctorily swiping at his own cock, before he balled it up and tossed it carelessly to the floor. 

“I despise you,” murmured Charles, letting his head drop to the pillow. 

“Liar,” Erik chuckled fondly. “You love me, for whatever your twisted love is worth.”

Charles didn’t bother to reply, closing his eyes. Erik moved, and without a single word rearranged him so he could wrap himself about the telepath, chest to back, breathing calmly in his neck. 

“I’m hot,” complained Charles, pushing at his arm wrapped like a vice around his own chest. 

“I hate the cold,” Erik sighed, burying his nose in Charles’ dark hair. “It was always cold in Auschwitz. Bitterly, wretchedly cold. I hate it.”

Charles sighed. Erik tightened his arm, drawing him even closer to fit into the hollow of his body, and—well. Maybe Charles didn’t mind so much. 

“I mourned you,” said Erik suddenly, pushing his forehead against the back of Charles’ skull, where the titanium plate replaced bone. “It was killing me, what I did to you.”

A long pause. 

“It’s always Shaw,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “He killed my mother, right in front of me. One bullet to the head. And then—you. But he’s not going to take anything else from me. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to tear him _from limb to limb_.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so terribly sorry for the wait. I don't even have an excuse. My brain was broken, but I think I might be starting to fix it.

There was blood under is fingernails. That was disgusting, probably. Maybe if it had been someone else’s blood, Erik might have washed his hands, but this was Charles’ blood, and Charles’ blood was his, just like the rest of Charles. 

Baskerville sprawled out deeply asleep against the door, a guardian straight out of a nightmare, sucking heat like a black hole and rumbling lowly in his sleep. Baskerville was his now, too. 

Above him in the air, two balls of stainless steels collided, fused, formed one disk and stretched out long into a danger, a sword, brittle-thin, then two balls again. Erik remembered being broken and dying and not knowing how to do this. 

His head didn’t hurt. That was good. 

He kept his eyes pinned to the metal as he reached out with his hand and tapped his cigarette against the edge of the steel ashtray, tipping ash into the dish. Brought it back to his lips, and inhaled until his lungs were full of acrid, bitter smoke, exhaled through his nostrils like a dragon. The smoke drifted down and brushed across Charles’ cheeks. 

Erik looked down. He was sitting against the headboard, which he’d flattened into a smooth metal surface for his comfort. Between his spread thighs, back plastered to Erik’s chest, Charles slept as deeply as Baskerville, exhausted and drained. Erik tipped his head to the side, letting his eyes follow the long scratches along Charles’ soft flat belly, track over the purpling bruises—fingertips, bite-marks. The collar of darkening bruises around his long throat. Charles hated being marked. Erik smiled and ghosted a fingertip against the mark he’d sucked right below Charles’ ear, visible and violent against his pale white skin. 

Somewhere along the back of his skull, a breathless voice like the consciousness of a dying man told him _you shouldn’t hurt him_. 

None of it was permanent, anyway. He wouldn’t give Charles any scars. None of them would ever be as important as the one in the back of his head where his bullet had hit the bone. That was Erik’s forever. 

And, ah. There was something there. Earlier that night Erik had crushed Charles to the wall and spat in his face about his sick, twisted version of love, and he’d used those feelings like the poison they were. Charles’ most powerful weapon had spared Erik’s life—if the empty, shuffling existence he’d lead as he died slowly from the inside out could be called life—and Erik wanted to mock him for it, for that stupid little weakness. 

The problem was, Erik had done no better, because a bullet to the back of the skull should have killed Charles, not put him in a coma. Erik understood, now, what had happened that night. And it was worse, because Charles had _chosen_ not to kill Erik, whereas Erik’s stupid fucking mind had just acted up on itself and sucked all the strength out of the bullet. A projectile that should have come out of Charles’ forehead with a blood of blood and gore had somewhat more innocuously been stopped by bone. 

Charles should by all rights be rotting in an unmarked grave, but instead here he was, lying naked between Erik’s thighs, warm and sweaty and filthy. He was going to wake up in a foul mood. Erik hadn’t let him clean himself up at all. 

He smiled slightly, dragging his knuckles lightly over a flaking splatter of what was probably semen. He didn’t know whose. 

Charles was going to tear him apart. 

He hummed slightly when his eyes fell on the almost black bite-mark at the meat of his thumb. Charles didn’t like things in his mouth, unless he’d put them there himself. Erik himself wasn’t showing many consequences of the night. Charles didn’t have the urge to mark his body, but then again—he could rip apart his mind, so what was the need? Erik knew how he belonged to, and if they had a lick of sense in their minds, so would everyone else. 

Baskerville snuffled. Then his ears prickled up, and he lifted his massive head, eyes burning like molten metal, and Erik knew someone was coming to their door. 

Charles’s respiration changed, and he emerged from sleep quickly into complete alertness. Erik took a long drag of his cigarette. 

Charles’ voice was a raspy, harsh ruin. Erik shouldn’t have liked that, but he loved it. Charles didn’t need his throat to talk anyway. “Moira is coming to the door.” 

Erik exhaled smoke. “If you let her touch you, I’ll kill her.” 

Charles, too relaxed to roll his eyes, somehow still managed to convey his disdain for that little threat. He should know better. Erik never made empty threads. But then, Charles didn’t really know him. Not now. 

“You’ll kill her anyway,” Charles said, voice without any sort of inflection, and shifted up. His back dragged, damp with sweat, along the front of Erik’s chest. Erik changed position to arch forward so his stomach was pressed against the curve of Charles’ back. His right hand, the one Charles had bitten viciously, slid slowly from Charles’ knee up to the crease of his thigh, brushed against the dark hair at the root of his cock, still soft. Not for long. Charles let his head drop to the curve of Erik’s shoulder, and Erik let his hand come up to cover his long slender throat. 

Erik contemplated that comment and concluded that, yes, he was probably going to kill her anyway. She’d already touched Charles. And now that he was back, Charles didn’t need her—shouldn’t need anyone, for that matter. He hummed again, nosing along the side of Charles’ arched neck, tongued the mark he’d left there well above any collars. 

Charles huffed, maybe a laugh. 

“Even if you tattooed your name on my throat, it still wouldn’t mean I’m yours.” 

Erik tightened his grip, hooking his fingertips behind the sternocleidomastoid muscle, pressing his thumb into the hollow beneath the hinge of Charles’ jaw. 

“I shouldn’t need to go that far, but I guess we’ll see.” 

Charles gripped his left hand and brought it up to his mouth to take a drag from his nearly burned-out cigarette. Erik felt the smoke drag through his trachea beneath his fingers, against his palm. 

Baskerville got up and prowled the room, growled low at the door as if it might at any time burst open—it wouldn’t Erik had melted the lock—and then came over to the bed and nosed against Erik’s side. His nose was cold. It didn’t exist, but it was cold and damp against his skin. In some ways, though, Baskerville was more real than anything else in Erik’s life, except the way the muscles in Charles’ throat moved when he exhaled smoke through lazy parted lips. 

Charles took the cigarette from his fingers, so Erik let his hand fall down and scratch behind Baskerville’s ears, and then tug at his ruff playfully when the hound rumbled in pleasure. He was bigger now, Erik noticed. 

“Is your pup growing?” he asked, arching a brow. 

“Hardly a pup,” countered Charles, twisting to crush the cigarette on the ashtray. “And the last few hours, I admit, have seen something of a change of dimensions. It must be your charming personality, feeding us love and affection.” 

“I’d say I’ll feed you something,” Erik laughed. “But that would probably be worse than even _your_ lines.”

“That is saying something,” Charles chuckled. “Although I might point out I’ve never been turned down. And considering the present situation, one-liners ought to be superfluous.” And he shifted back against Erik’s already hard cock. 

“I could fuck you again,” Erik said, as if he was conceding to something Charles was asking for. Which he wasn’t, because the world might catch on fire before Charles Xavier begged. Probably would. Erik would flick the match. 

“Don’t do me any favors,” scoffed Charles, shifting. He glanced down at himself and stilled. “Oh bloody fucking hell.”

“It could have been worse,” Erik grinned, all teeth. “I could have tried to piss on you.” 

“You are disgusting and I regret my life choices,” Charles grumbled, squirming to try and free himself from Erik’s vice-like arms. Pointlessly. He wasn’t going anywhere. “Jesus Christ, Erik. You are not an animal, you do not need to scent me like a dog in heat—you better not be a bout to make a comment about me being your bitch.” He added darkly.

Erik laughed, loud and long. It felt good. “Not at all. If it’s any comfort to your rumpled pride, you can fuck me next time.” 

“Speaking of rumpled. You owe me a suit.” 

Erik scoffed. “I only ruined the shirt.”

“Yes, but the shirt went well with _that suit_. Not to mention you cracked the glass of my watch against the wall. You are an animal.”

Erik could see how high maintenance Charles was going to be. It spoke volumes of his disturbed mind that he didn’t care. 

“Fine,” he said, all too easily. “I’ll buy you suits and pretty things, princess.” 

Charles stilled for a moment, as if he might murder Erik for calling him that, but then he laughed, going limp against Erik like a rag doll. Baskerville snorted, shaking his head and licking idly at the delicate skin on the inside of Erik’s wrist—a rare patch of skin without scars in the battlefield of his body. 

“I like your body,” Charles murmured, catching the thought. 

Erik shrugged, “I don’t mind it.” 

“You are, however, severely underweight,” he pressed back, using his feet against the mattress as leverage, and Erik gasped when his ribs sank down into his own chest, too fragile, bruised. He was a mess. He was only now realizing. 

Charles sighed, and moved away to sit at the edge of the bed, crossing his legs and looking at him with such a solemn expression that one might think he was not naked and covered in bruises and love marks and—ah. So that’s where the blood had come from. There were deep scratches all along his smooth white back. 

Erik was somewhat perplexed Charles wasn’t killing him for that; though, on second thought, he also wasn’t. 

He spread open his hands, staring at his long, bony fingers. His hands were shaking. 

“You’re not out of it yet,” Charles murmured, and used his hands to close Erik’s into loose fists. “What I did to you, it would have killed a simpler man. There are still wounds healing in your mind—memories slotting back in their rightful places. You’re unstable. Your body has taken a lot of abuse as well, of course, but it’s your mind that makes you feel like broken glass.”

Erik’s eyes flicked up. “How do you know that’s what I feel?”

Charles smiled, not unkindly now. “There’s nothing about you I don’t know anymore, Erik.” 

Erik opened his mouth, and no sound came out, until he was angry enough to force a growl through his tight throat, and sit up angrily, yanking his hands away from Charles’. Baskerville whined a thin sound of distress, drawn-out and grating. 

“I’m not— _fragile_ ,” he spat. 

Charles laughed like Erik had just said the most hilarious thing. It was cold and distant and purposefully cruel—very much like Charles, actually. Erik hadn’t expected Charles to be—different to him, but having it confirmed is bittersweet. Charles is what Charles is. That’ll never change. The love he feels for Erik, undeniable and life-consuming and maddening, it doesn’t translate into affection and gentle caresses. That’s not something they know how to do. 

The other Erik—the brain-dead Erik— _he_ had known. 

“You can keep telling yourself that, but you’re not fooling me. I’ve seen the inside of your head, and I know what it looks like.” 

Erik surged forward, catching him at the throat and pinning him to the bed. The metal suspended above them plunged, twin daggers sharp like scalpels, into the mattress at either side of them. Charles’ face locked won into complete impassiveness, calm like the unmoving surface of a pond. Baskerville whined again, low and urgent and frightened. For Erik. 

“And what about you?” Erik snarled. 

“I’m helpless physically,” Charles answered, and the honesty startled Erik so much his fingers went lax. “Is that what this is? My weakness for yours? Fair trade? I’m not threatening you, Erik. I’m telling you the truth. You’ve been a walking dead man for years. You don’t come back from that in one night. Not—not the way I brought you back.”

He narrowed his eyes, a muscle in his jaw ticking when Baskerville whined again, flattening his great black body to the floor. There was bitterness there somewhere, but Erik couldn’t understand where it came from. 

“I think Baskerville thinks you’re threatening me,” Erik said quietly. 

Charles huffed, wrapping his hand loosely around Erik’s wrist. “Baskerville cares about your brainwaves. You shouldn’t be this worked up after what I did, you can hurt yourself. I’m not going to say I’ll never hurt you, because you’ll know when I lie to you. I’ll probably end up killing you at some point, if you don’t kill me first—“

“Not after I have my revenge.”

“Yes, yes, your revenge, a plate best served cold, the reckoning, etcetera etcetera. I know. I’ll do my best not to shred you apart before you put a bullet in Shaw’s head.”

Erik’s right thigh ached. He didn’t know where that came from, but it was beginning to cramp, so Erik changed positions, straddling Charles, and started massaging it slowly. 

“There’s probably muscle and nerve damage in various parts of your body,” Charles mused, smoothing his hands gently down Erik’s whip-cord arms. 

“This is all I have,” Erik ground out, childishly defensive. 

Charles laughed. “Oh darling, I’m not complaining. You’re broken and ruined, but that doesn’t make you any less beautiful. I’d still take you to my bed—still will—and I’d still feel whatever twisted thing I feel for you. If you want to call it love, I guess I won’t stop you. Wouldn’t know love if it slapped me in the face. You have more experience in it than me.” 

Erik dragged a hand heavily down his face. What a pair they made. 

Someone rapped their knuckles slowly on the door, and Erik’s head whipped to the side so abruptly his neck pulled. Baskerville’s head came up and around, fur standing on end and starting to smoke. 

“Oh hush,” Charles waved a hand dismissively, and Baskerville subsided, disgruntled. Charles threw Erik a dark look. “If you’re going to be a volatile teenager, please do try not to drag the hell-hound along for your sentimental rollercoaster.” 

Erik glared down at him. “I mean what I said about killing her.” 

Charles looked deeply unimpressed. 

“Don’t act like I’m the only one here with a possessive streak,” Erik hissed. 

The telepath gave him a look that very clearly said he thought Erik was the stupidest creature alive. 

“You don’t understand,” he said finally, tone even and low. “My body is nothing to me. If you want it, then go ahead and have it. You care more about your body than I do. Oh, I’ll certainly take it if you want to give it to me—I do love sex—but I don’t need to know you keep it only for me. It’s your _mind_ I want to own. You don’t need to suck a bruise into my neck to know I won’t stray, because, let me remind you, you can control Baskerville. If that doesn’t tell you I’m yours, then you’re as dumb as you look.”

Erik was left speechless, but even if he had had something to say to that, there was no time because the rapping at the door came again. He gritted his teeth and got off Charles, let him call ‘coming’ politely and rise from the bed, let him find loose sleeping pants and a shirt. He only grumbled vaguely when Charles gave him a pointed glare and demanded he got beneath the sheets, and did it. 

“Thank you, dear,” Charles sighed, and there was something scathing and sneering in his tone, but Erik found himself tired, suddenly, and sinking gratefully onto the bed. Baskerville snuffled around shortly and then came up on the bed with him, lying down stretched along his side, warm and solid, and, Erik did not fail to notice, between him and the door. 

The hell-hound-shaped anthropomorphic representation of his lover’s insurmountable telepathic powers was _protective_. This was Erik’s life. 

“Yes, Agent, do forgive me, we were sleeping.” 

Erik could hear the rasp of Charles’ voice in his aching throat, but McTaggert didn’t bat a lash—Charles was probably covering the worst of the damage with an illusion. 

From where his face was still half sunken into the pillow, Erik could see McTaggert look uncomfortable. Whether it was because Charles looked positively mauled, or because Erik was lying on his stomach in the bed in a loose sprawl that clearly spelled out well-fucked, or because well, she obviously wanted Charles herself and had come to the harsh reality of that never happening, was a mystery.

But Erik—Erik found himself sleepy and tired, suddenly, and the way his fatigue descended upon him like a blanket stabbed a blade of panic through his chest. Baskerville, invisible to McTaggert but as solid to Erik as the bed he lay on, whined and nosed his neck, seeking possibly to comfort. A second later, the rest of Charles’ mind caught up. 

_Unstable_ , Charles reminded him, voice soothing like balm on a burn. Baskerville shifted, laying more of his weight on Erik’s side and resting his heavy head on Erik’s shoulder blade. Erik realized that the hounds’ respiration rhythm was unlike an animal’s—it was Charles’ breath coming through Baskerville to guide Erik’s chest through the—panic attack? Was that what he was having?

Erik closed his eyes and let the hound teach him how to breathe. 

Charles and McTaggert were talking quietly at the door, but Baskerville’s rumble of pleasure when Erik managed to calm down, combined with the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears, was enough to drown them out. Erik wanted to be alert and watch McTaggert like a hawk, but something told him that almost the entirety of Charles’ mind was focused on him, not her. 

He fell asleep, dreamt of nothing and woke up screaming, vision blurred with tears. Baskerville was smoke and fire looming above him, terrified and furious because he was terrified. Charles was kneeling by the bed holding one of Erik’s hands—no. Erik’s hand was wrapped like a vice around his wrist. The skin beneath his palm and fingers felt hot and inflamed, and he could see the bruises forming already, but his fingers—he couldn’t—Charles’ lip was split and—

“It’s alright,” said Charles, calm and cold like a winter breeze, not even trying to free himself even though the damage Erik was doing to his wrist this time was serious. This wasn’t a love mark. This was Erik being out of control and dangerous. 

“Erik,” Charles murmured, and Erik realized his fingers were stroking gently over the numbers—tattooed on his skin—

“I buried her,” Erik snapped, and almost bit his tongue in half, because—he had. He _had_. 

Baskerville exploded into flames as black as nothing, and they licked down against Erik’s chest and face. It hurt and it didn’t. It was fire, but his skin didn’t blister. 

“Yes,” Charles didn’t say _I’m sorry_ , he didn’t say _you’re alright_ or _it’s in the past_. He had no pity for Erik, no useless sentiment or worthless words of comfort. And for all the broken and jagged pieces of whatever was left of his heart, Erik loved him for it. 

Erik could feel it al spiraling away from him, wildfire on a dry forest. The camp. The experiments. His mother. The escape, more experiments—Frost. Shaw. 

Baskerville roared, a deafening sound that dazed Erik, it was so loud, and somehow Erik knew Charles’ telepathy was snapping out like tidal wave, hurting everyone within the vast radius of his power because Erik was in pain, and—and oh, if Erik was in pain, the rest of the world had no business being fine, did they? 

He felt one curling thrill off madness at the thought—that this creature, Charles Xavier, would bring the world to its knees as a reckoning for Erik’s nightmares—and then a small and cold part of his brain reasserted logic. He took a deep breath, and it was like the world came into an abrupt stop, grinding painfully to a halt. Baskerville dissolved, smoke and a ghost of horror and a low long whine of pain. Erik felt Charles’ mind retract, fold back into itself like a cloud of ink on rewind. 

“There you are, love,” Charles smiled. Blood dripped down his chin, down the long line of his throat to soak on the collar of his shirt. 

“I hit you.” 

“You have sharp elbows. You only reopened the old cut, though,” Charles shrugged. 

Erik made a small sound on the back of his throat and struggled up to his elbows, leaned over the side of the bed to lap at the blood on Charles’ chin and lips, the first gentle thing he did. Something settled inside him when Charles didn’t move away. 

“Come back in here,” he whispered. Charles’s wrist was badly hurt, and his lip was still bleeding, but he didn’t even hesitate to climb back in the bed and let Erik curl around him, possessive and shaken. 

“Will that happen again?”

“The nightmares? Yes, probably, until your mind settles entirely.”

A better man would have suggested Charles find another place to sleep in for the duration, somewhere he couldn’t be hurt by a man in the grips of violent night horrors, but Erik was a monster and Charles didn’t know how to withdraw from a lost battle, didn’t know how to lose a battle. 

“Why did you send Baskerville away?” 

Charles scoffed. “ _You_ sent him away.”

Erik inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “Can you stop me if I try to hurt you again?”

“It would only make it worse. It’s better we ride out the worst of it and let your mind heal its wounds on its own.” 

“I thought—before, Baskerville stopped the nightmares. Why can’t you do that now?”

“Before, your mind was like a jigsaw puzzle. You didn’t know which part of you went where. The nightmares would have only broken everything into even smaller fragments, driven you completely mad. But now, your mind—this is difficult to explain,” Charles sighed, frustrated. “Your mind knows what it needs, Erik, it can fix itself. It doesn’t have to hurt, but it does because you’re a violent man well acquainted with pain. It’s familiar ground, so you make it hurt. It’s twisted and frankly sad, but there you are. It’s all you have, so learn to love it.” 

“But I’m hurting you, too.”

“Not the part of me that matters,” Charles replied simply, honestly. “Pain isn’t an issue for me. I’ve been through worse. I can take it.” 

There was a long, drawn out moment of silence. Beyond their bed and their door and the metal fixture of their walls, Erik could feel the world threaded with veins of metal that were his just as much as the ones running blood in his own flesh. He was powerful again, in control, fully himself. He was awake. 

“So this is our version of it,” Erik said at length, into the quiet darkness of the room. “Two omega mutants out for blood. Maybe we should just kill each other and spare the world.” 

Charles smiled at him, as sweet as nothing, eyes almost white in the silver moonlight. 

“Fuck the world.” 

Erik laughed. He fell asleep again, but the next time he woke up, with Charles trapped beneath him in the bed, the world wasn’t a red haze of terror and anger. Charles was asleep, his breathing deep and steady. Baskerville had stretched out again across the door. His eyes glowed red like arterial blood in the dark room, half-opened to lazy slits, but paying attention to Erik. 

The twin knives he’d made of the metal balls were stuck in the bedside table, point first. Idle and bored, knowing he’d not sleep again, he pulled one out and started playing with it mindlessly, looking at it out of the corner of his eye, his forehead pressed to Charles’ temple. 

Eventually, when the dawn started drifting slowly through the blinds, he realizes what he had created, and laughed. The sound rose Charles, and the telepath mumbled and squirmed under the weight of Erik’s body. Charles didn’t like the contact, didn’t like being touched all the time, and even less to be held down. 

The bruises Erik had sucked into his skin would fade with time. In a few weeks nothing would be left of the night before this one. 

“I made something or you, Charles,” he said silkily, smiling like a knife. 

Charles glanced to the side and sighed, long and put-upon. 

“Well, those should go nicely with the watch you are _absolutely_ buying me.”

“They go even better with the metal headboard I’m going to fuse them to right now,” Erik said, voice gravelly and low, as he sat up above Charles and gripped the telepath’s wrists. He pulled them up above Charles’ head and pressed them to the pillows, and the bracelets came down to fasten around them, skin-tight and smooth like ice. The bruises would fade, but these would last. 

“Metal bondage,” Charles said wryly. “I could have imagined. You better hope those don’t chafe, or I’ll take it out on your pain receptors.” 

“Let’s put it to the test,” grinned Erik, and used the remaining knife to cut off Charles’ sleeping, blood-stained shirt. He ignored the dirty look it earned him.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have literally no excuse for the brutal delay except that I was suffering block and only just managed to break it. I don't know. I think I broke my brain. 
> 
> My apologies >.

Somewhere in the world, spread out like stars across the night sky, were exactly ninety-six people still alive who knew precisely what had been done to Erik, by whom, and why. 

In a matter of two weeks, Baskerville found and lead him to all of them, one by one, and stood watch as Erik got creative. 

Charles only very rarely abandoned the CIA complex in New Mexico. He had no need. Baskerville was powerful enough to skim the surface of Mars in search of sentient life, so looking for an obscure World War II Nazi with only the knowledge that Erik had once bitten his hand was hardly a task. 

The telepath had more important things to do in any case. Although Charles has really literally no qualm with putting the people he disliked to Erik’s blade, he wasn’t exactly completely out of control or a deranged murderer. He did have his codes, which he occasionally even adhered to, if he felt in the mood. Not everyone in the compound had known exactly what Frost and Shaw were up to, and most of them, like Wolverine and others, had actually been as much victims as Charles himself. Those Charles spared, giving them the truth and then the option of helping the CIA bring down the whole operation. 

Most of them agreed, and were easily folded into the CIA. Few declined, but the ones that did Charles didn’t judge. Sometimes, when Baskerville was far away that the ability to feel emotion abandoned Charles entirely, the telepath wanted to get up and dissolve into anonymity forever. Just to be left alone, and in peace, without the tedious constant attention of men and women that were terrified of him in the same measure they understood they needed him.

If they had known how to kill him, they would have done it already. Charles had caught the fleeting thought several times, the ‘better to kill him than risk him turning on us’ urge that humans were so very prone to. They didn’t understand him, and would rather he not exist. He hadn’t punished those thoughts, though he’d taken note of the men that had thought them. There was little point in killing them now. He still needed them, after all. 

“I have gold,” Erik said, one morning, as they walked idly through the small little town by the compound. “We don’t need them at all. I’m sure we can take Shaw down, just the two of us.”

“Of course we can,” Charles replied thoughtfully. “But it will take months, years even. This is the fastest way.” 

“I could make it very clear that killing you is off the table,” Erik suggested, eyes hard. 

“Darling, you’ve no imagination,” Charles lamented. “They already know they can’t kill me. I’m not mind-police, I can’t very well tell them what to think and when—“

“Yes you can.”

“Alright, _yes_ , but I don’t bloody feel like it. Do you know just how boring it is to dig around in human’s minds? Oh, don’t bother, I know perfectly well you can’t imagine it. Why you try to lie to me I’ll never understand.” 

Erik gave him a flat look. “I wasn’t going to lie, I was trying to keep up with this conversation, but if you’d like me to just stand here and be pretty, you need only say so.”

“As soon as you become pretty I’ll take you up on that.” 

Erik’s lips twitched up. “Wanker. But seriously, I’m getting tired of playing the good boy, I don’t understand why we can’t just get rid of everyone and do this on our own.” 

“I just explained to you why,” Charles said patiently. “And for the record, attempting to kill Moira at every turn—“

“Oh, if I wanted Moira dead, she’d be dead,” Erik cut in frostily. Charles ignored him with the ease of a well-tempered teacher dealing with the unruly, particularly dull student. 

“—and expressly disobeying every single order and guideline you are given is not ‘playing the good boy’. 

Erik made a crossed sound on the back of his throat that was so purely German that Charles had to smile. Very few languages allowed non-verbal communication as well as the ones that taught you to talk while spitting. 

Ahead of them on the sidewalk, a boy and his little sister played with marbles. Baskerville watched them, great head tilted curiously over the girl’s shoulder, ears prickled forward in attention. Somewhere in the back of his mind Charles registered her memories. Her father worked at the base. Her mother was a kindergarten teacher. She was pretty and blond and blue-eyed, and Erik felt an instant, deep-rooted dislike of her that had no basis in any sort of rational thought. 

Erik really was a very unpleasant person, not that Charles cared particularly. 

Humming low in his throat, Erik crossed before Charles and opened the door to the coffee shop, wordless. Charles, by this time having learned that contradicting Erik was rarely a good idea, ducked into the store and moved instinctively towards the back to sit in the corner booth. Erik, pleased, boxed him in, presumably to be able to put himself between whatever danger randomly popped up and Charles’ admittedly weak body. 

It was strange, for Charles, to be irrevocably linked to someone so undeniably grounded in physicality. Erik was alarm and alert and the exact location of every exit in every building, the number of rings in the waitresses’ fingers and the loose bolt in a classic car halfway across town. 

Charles was stuck in the little girl’s mind. She pushed her marble and missed her brother’s by an inch. Baskerville’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, eyes glinting with amusement. The brother grinned, but good-humoredly let the girl try again, and didn’t complain when she won this time. Good boy. Baskerville felt the urge to reward him by dissolving his irrational fear of spiders, and Charles ruthlessly pulled the hound back into his mind. 

Erik arched his brows at him. 

“You really are a dreadful influence,” the telepath complained. “You’re all about immediate gratification. No control at all. You’re cocking it all up.” 

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Erik replied mockingly. “Found anyone else?”

“All business all the time,” sighed Charles. “Yes, I found Hans Hubert. You remember him, liked to urinate on you.”

Erik stopped in the middle of gesturing for the waitress, muscles gone stiff and mind whirling with the choking blackness of hatred. 

“I remember,” he said, voice remarkably calm. He finished the gesture and settled back against the seat, hand falling carelessly on Charles’ thigh. “Where is he?”

“Peru, Imperial City of Cuzco.” 

Erik nodded slowly, watching the people passing by the café out on the street. His mind drifted into the past, neatly pulling up images of Hubert’s face and matching them up with old, half-forgotten memories. As he began to remember, Charles lend him some power to reconstruct the memories, give them the clarity and limpidity of new recollections. The metallokinetic sank into the past, so Charles withdrew. 

He sat back against the seat, shifted minutely against the heat of Erik’s palm through the fabric of his trousers. Erik’s hands were big and rough-skinned, covered in little scars and calluses from the grips of guns he didn’t need. Now that he had the entirety of his gift at his disposal, Erik had eschewed the guns and returned instead to his own favorite weapons—several rings of different metals in his fingers, over and below the knuckles. An eccentricity for a man, in the civilian world, but they rarely got out of the compound and when they did they never used civilian transportation, so he could afford it. 

It went without saying that Erik had never learned to be inconspicuous, even though Charles had made an effort to teach him. Charles was a pretty man and with a good suit he could make heads turn, but Erik, well dressed and clean, was—well. Inconspicuous was the word. 

“Why, I’m blushing,” Erik murmured, giving him a predatory look. 

Charles gave him a narrowed-eyed look. “I am not about to let you fuck me while making us invisible, so unless you want to share the sight of my bobbing cock with everyone on this town, you’ll exercise some control.” 

Erik’s face turned to stone. Possessive little shit. 

Charles settled back in the seat and released the outer ring of his gift, spreading it like a blanket over the distance, reaching out like seeking fingers. He caressed over Jean’s napping mind, soothing the writing fire-beast hidden deep below, and sailed right over across the miles in search of a familiar, specific mind. Ice and diamond and a loathing deeper than the unexplored depths of the ocean. 

_A voice deeper than all roses_ , he murmured into her mind, intimate as a lover. 

The smooth cold insides of Frost’s mind erupted in spikes. He burned through them with Baskervilles’ eyes, and chuckled indulgently. 

_E. E. Cummings_ , said Frost, isolating the spot in her mind where he had slithered in like a snake. 

_Caracas, Venezuela, he smiled. Lovely city._

_How much longer do you plan on playing this little game of yours?_ she asked tiredly, the serrated edges of the diamond-hard mind pressing in against him like saw-blades. They didn’t hurt him. They weren’t as sharp as Baskerville’s fangs. 

_Why, dear, this isn’t a game. This is a hunt._

Anger rose like spears through her mind, rippling seas of translucent razor-blades. They brushed up against the hounds’ sides and fur, ticklish. _You know where I am. Come hunt me._

_No_ , Charles smiled. _It’s so much more fun to close the noose slowly around your neck._

_If you think I’ll make it easy—_

_There’s little you could do to complicate it_ , Charles sighed. He shifted in her mind, dropping a ghostly kiss to her temple, and withdrew back into himself. As he folded back into his body, he brushed over several minds in the small town, and glimpsed the readying of guns. 

Erik’s fingertips brushed against the inside of his thigh, absently running up the seam of Charles’ fine wool trousers. Charles indulged in spreading his thighs less than an inch, and smirked when Erik turned his face to glare at him, eyes hard and hot like coals. 

“You started it,” Charles said primly, reaching for his cup. 

Erik shifted and elegantly crossed his legs. The vindictive part of his brain—just about most of it—decided he would fix this issue with Charles at a later hour, in the privacy of their room. 

“Drink your coffee, puppy,” said Charles, patting Erik’s hand on his thigh. “We’re about to be attacked.” 

Erik pulled a face. “It’s not even eleven. You’d think an assassin would have the decency to let me finish my breakfast.” 

“Brunch, more like.”

“What the fuck is brunch?”

“It’s a good thing I don’t keep you around for your intelligence.” 

Erik grumbled a curse in some language or other, Charles really couldn’t be bothered to keep track, and took a long sip of his coffee. 

“You could just render them brain-dead,” Erik complained. “I need my caffeine.” 

“Why do I have you if you won’t even kill some petty assassin for me?”

Erik gave him a look. “Because you’re fond of my cock.” 

“It’s not that big,” lied Charles. 

The German did something with his face that showed a lot of teeth without quite being a smile. It was indescribably creepy. 

“It’s not the size,” he started, and then stopped when a hail of bullets shattered the front window. 

Erik sighed and picked up his cup to finish his coffee in one long gulp before sliding out of the booth. Charles turned to press his back against the wall, folding his leg beneath the other as he turned the cup of tea in his hands. Baskerville materialized next to Erik, a low rolling growl vibrating deep in his throat as his fur caught flame. 

He frowned. “You let them kill the waiter!”

Erik made some low reply, and Charles rolled his eyes, because he’d obviously let her die only because she’d been looking at Charles. It wasn’t that Charles protested the death of some anonymous woman with an unremarkable mind, it was just that he was never going to hear the end of it from McTaggart. The CIA and their delicate fucking sensibilities. 

“Should I leave one alive for questioning?” Erik glanced at him over his shoulder, fingers flexing as the rings unraveled from them to form small, solid little bullets. 

“For the CIA, sure,” Charles shrugged. “I already know who sent them.” 

Erik, who didn’t do anyone any favors and only did what he was told if he happened to randomly feel like it, stepped over the sea of glass on the floor and out the window into the street. People were panicking, screams and shrieks of terror from people who’d never been in a gunfight. Charles reached out to them and made them lie down on the street and sleep. It wouldn’t do to have them screaming their throats out, it made Erik irritable. An irritable Erik was good news for absolutely nobody. 

Charles’ mobile started ringing. He flipped it open without glancing at the screen. 

“Moira, dear.”

“What the hell is going out there, Charles?” she hissed, sounding like she was moving quickly. Getting into a car, probably. 

“Just a shoot out, nothing too bad. Oh, there’s a casualty,” he grimaced. “My apologies.”

“Are you apologizing because he killed them himself, or because he let them get killed?” Moira snapped. 

“Whichever makes you moderate your tone,” Charles answered mildly. 

“Charles, I—“

The phone folded in on itself with a pitiful, dying whine. 

Charles sent a lance of sharp pain through Erik’s mind, and swatted his hand to deflect the oncoming bit of metal meant to hurt his forehead. The band of his metal watch crushed his wrist and pinned it to the table. Charles hissed in pain, stiffening. Baskerville’s eyes turned from the enemies to Erik, and ignited blood-red gold. 

Cursing a blue streak, Charles snapped out with his mind and stopped time, grating the trajectory of Erik’s weapons down to a slow crawl through the air. Baskerville’s lips had pulled away from his fangs, and he was slowly working out the most painful way to make Erik’s mind release Charles’ wrist. 

“Mind yourself,” Charles said, hoarse, gripping his forearm. 

Erik turned around, eyes blank. It took him several seconds to understand. His face drained of blood, growing pale as paper. He made to rush to Charles, and stopped immediately when Baskerville growled. 

“Away,” he snapped, releasing the watch at once. Baskerville dissolved with a belligerent bark. 

Pain shot white-hot through Charles arm, dizzying in its intensity for a second before his telepathy blocked out the entire limb from the shoulder down. Blood pooled on the table, sipping slow from the cuts the wristband had made on Charles’ skin. Erik ripped the table from its moorings and kneeled next to Charles, frowning. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, taking Charles’ broken wrist in his hands carefully. 

“You better be, you bloody fucking menace.” 

Erik’s eyes were wide as he glanced up at Charles, holding Charles hand and forearm on his hands as gentle as if he were a precious bloody thing, a construct of glass and crystal draped in silk. 

Charles leaned back against the seat and looked dispassionately at his ruined left wrist. 

“There’s blood on my trousers,” he complained. 

“Sorry,” mumbled Erik, and reached for the paper napkins to clean it up, ineffectually, as he held Charles wrist away so the blood dripped on the floor. 

“Yes, well,” Charles shrugged. “Worse things have been done. At least it was the left wrist.” 

Erik dragged a hand down his face tiredly. “I hate it when it flares up like that.”

“It’s to be expected, love. Brain damage, you’ll recall.” 

“You almost killed me, didn’t you.”

“It was a close call,” admitted Charles.

Erik flicked his hand and the solid little balls of his rings ripped holes through the assassin’s heads before returning to him like obedient pets, curling snug against his bony fingers. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts before choosing one. 

“McTaggart, we need an ambulance,” he said curtly. 

“Oh, I didn’t need you to call me to tell me that,” the agent barked. 

“Just _get here_ ,” he said, and hung up. 

Charles’ wrist turned out to be broken in three separate splinters. This merited a cast, which could have been plaster if not for the fact that Erik insisted in designing one himself out of light-weight metal, padded inside with soft blue cloth. Charles, who had an eye for beauty and design and knew better than to contradict Erik when he was a on a rampage, folded to him with grace. 

Agent McTaggart, unfortunately, did not. 

“You really are wasting your time,” Charles said crossly, immobilizing the guards. “He’ll not stay there long, even if you manage to put him in it.”

“He’s a monster,” Moira hissed, glaring murderously at Erik, who stood menacingly behind Charles and was waiting for the smallest window of opportunity to bypass the telepath and disembowel Moira. Charles was in pain, irritated and tired, and was about an inch from letting him. “If you can’t even keep him on a leash—“

“That’s quite enough,” Charles said coldly. “I’ll thank you not to speak of my lover as if he were a bad dog, Moira. He didn’t mean to hurt me, and don’t even _start_ with me on abusive relationships, you know perfectly well I always give as bad as I get.”

“ _He_ doesn’t have any broken bones!”

“Yes, well, I cooked his brain, if you’ll remember, and before you finish forming that thought, Moira, you better understand right now that he and I are one and you can’t have me without him. Either let me go and deal with Shaw on your own—and let me tell you, you won’t succeed—or stop fucking messing about in my business.” 

Erik snorted and slid his arms possessively around Charles’ waist, bringing his back flush against the taller man’s chest. 

“What the fuck is this commotion,” Logan snarled, rounding the corner with a ferocious scowl. “I’m trying to fucking sleep here.” 

“Hibernating?” Sneered Erik. 

“Fuck you,” Logan replied easily. “Is this a pissing contest? Moira, I think you’re missing some relevant parts to participate.” 

“Contrary to what all of you obviously believe, this _isn’t_ just about whether I was attracted to Charles once,” Moira growled, flushed with anger, gone well past embarrassment. “Lehnsherr here has made absolutely no effort at any time to cooperate with the agency or protect innocent people. He’s a liability, a loose cannon, and a threat. I don’t want him loose anymore, Charles.” 

“What are you gonna do, throw him in a plastic cell?” mocked Logan. “Look, use your brain, woman. Erik here is a psychopathic dick, but he listens to Charles, and Charles can, on occasion, and wipe that smirk off your face, dollface, before I wipe your face off, be reasoned with. Christ, you’re fucking creepy.” 

“I resent the allegation of psychopath,” frowned Erik. 

“Psychopaths resent being compared to you, I’m sure,” Charles muttered. “Now everyone bloody _calm down_. Moira, I’m sorry about the girl at the café. I’ll see to her family personally. Erik has to be on a plane in a few hours. I’m sure the distance will do everyone some good. Erik will behave perfectly on this assignment,” he added, turning around to glare meaningfully at his lover. “He will be the perfect bloody example of a well-behaved field agent. We will all be _very proud_.” 

Erik’s lips curled in contempt. He looked at Moira and showed her all his teeth. It wasn’t anywhere near a smile. 

“Please do give me another chance, ma’am,” he asked politely. “I promise to stay within mission parameters.” 

“About that,” Logan frowned, resting his hands on his hips. “Did you seriously use a harvester to crush a car?”

“It did the job.”

“That harvester was worth half a million dollars, you spectacular tool,” growled Logan. 

“And the car another half million, just about,” Moira pointed out.

“I killed the target,” insisted Erik. “You’re all stuck in minor details, that’s your problem.”

“You’re my problem,” hissed Moira. 

“ _Alright_ ,” Charles raised his voice. “We have an agreement. Erik won’t kill anyone with expensive machinery, he will minimize damage to private property while doing his job. You Moira, will stay well away from me, because that’s a huge part of the problem, and for the love of god, everyone stop fucking thinking about abusive relationships and victims or so help me, I will make you all think you’re chickens.”

“Presumably because you like cock,” Logan drawled. 

“You are a despicable creature,” Charles said emphatically. 

Erik made a sound low on his throat and started dragging Charles way towards their bedroom. Once there, he fused the tumblers of the lock as he usually did, and turned to lean against the door. Charles lowered himself to the edge of the bed carefully, swallowing against the pain that crashed over him in unpredictable waves. He hated narcotics, so he couldn’t take pain meds, and he couldn’t afford to block out his nerve endings for long stretches of time. 

“You’ve really done it this time,” he said curtly. 

Erik came over and dropped to his knees in front of him, pressing his forehead to Charles’ thigh. The apology was there, even if Erik wasn’t going to say it out loud again, and Charles sighed, combing his fingers gently through the man’s soft hair. 

“We’ve outlived our welcome,” Erik mumbled into Charles’ trousers. 

“Yes,” Charles agreed absently. “But we still have some uses for the CIA, love. Ride it out a bit longer, there’s a lad.”

Erik straightened and urged Charles to stand. Carefully, almost tenderly, he undressed Charles and helped him lie down on his side on the bed, always minding the broken wrist and the metal brace. Then he slid in carefully behind him and brought him close, leaning up on an elbow to curve over him and look at his face. 

“You know where he is,” he said quietly. 

“Not Shaw,” admitted Charles. “But I know how to find him.” 

“Why don’t you just kill her?” Erik eyed Baskerville as he settled comfortably stretched in front of the door, bright red eyes half-lidded, ears drooping sleepily. 

“I can still use her,” Charles suppressed a yawn. “Why waste resources you still have a use for? I’ll kill Frost eventually, oh, never doubt that. But for now, there’s no need.” 

“Always mind you don’t commit excesses,” Erik commented dryly. 

“Oh, do shut up. You broke my wrist, I think I deserve some sleep.” 

“I’ll never live this down, won’t I.”

“You broke my wrist! Well, maybe you can make it up to me. I’ll think of something.”

“I’m sure,” muttered Erik, settling down flush against Charles’ back, nuzzling the back of his neck. 

Erik went gradually limp as he began to fall asleep, and Charles let him mind wander, vague and unfocused, as he drifted himself. Erik’s mind was a quiet murmur at his back, soothing and familiar as the arm around his waist. 

Erik lifted his head from the pillow, mind sharpening abruptly into wakefulness. 

“How did they know where we were?” he asked sharply. 

Charles stilled. Slowly, he turned his head to stare at Erik’s narrowed eyes. 

“How did the assassins find us?” Erik’s arm tightened around Charles’ middle. 

_I couldn’t possibly have been stupid enough_ , Charles thought darkly, wondering if he’d led Frost right to their location by continually harassing her. It wouldn’t be the first time he underestimated, though it would certainly be the last—

The bedroom window exploded inwards, shards of glass and twisted metal hitting the wall like shrapnel. Erik pulled down the ceiling beams to shield them from the blast, curling himself protectively around Charles so that his chest pressed against Charles’ arm. Pain blanked Charles’ mind before he shorted it out. Baskerville roared, eyes a bright glow in the darkness of the room. 

Shaw brushed the shoulders of his suit jacket primly. 

“Well boys,” he smiled beneath the helmet, and Charles’ skin crawled. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for my tardiness so I shan't give one. 
> 
> BEWARE: THIS CHAPTER IS HIGHLY VIOLENT. Both Emma Frost and Shaw die (it's not a spoiler, you knew it was coming, come on) and they both do so in rather dusturbing ways. The scene with Charles is particularly bad. 
> 
> Remember the tags and warnings in this story. They're not gratituous.

_Something is wrong_ were the words that repeated themselves in a loop through Charles’ mind as Erik went sailing out the window, two stories down into the courtyard, and saved his life only at the last possible second by using his rings to hover. 

Charles struggled to his feet, tangled in the sheet. Snake-fast, Shaw reached out and grabbed a handful of his dark hair, dragging him out of the bed and throwing him off balance. Charles landed badly on the metal brace; pain whited-out his vision, and by the time he recovered Shaw had him by the throat, and was dragging him out. 

At that point absolutely everything went wrong. 

Telepathy slipped over the dome of the helmet like a spider’s leg on glossy metal. There was no stopping Shaw—not even Baskerville could burn through the protection. Charles felt panic, pervasive like acid, knot down on his stomach. Catching fire like a fuse, his telepathy instead turned outwards like a dome, spreading out to take hold of all the minds nearby and give them one command: _protect Charles_. 

Almost at the same time the nest of fire and violence in Jean Grey’s mind erupted up, aggressive, and sank claws long like swords onto Baskerville, choking the hound. Fire engulfed Charles from the inside-out, pain like electricity making his knees falter. 

Charles had been careful so far never to stir the fire in Jean’s mind, never to disturb it, never to turn it against himself. He hadn’t known how powerful it could be, but he’d sensed much more than him. But as his telepathy lashed out to protect him, free of conscious control, it gave an order to a creature much bigger than itself, and the creature didn’t like it. 

The entirety of Charles’ mind then turned its attention instead into the struggle with the monster sleeping in jean’s mind. On his knees, struggling to breathe through the confusion and the vertigo of fighting with a power more than his equal, Charles was blind and deaf. 

He was brought back into the focus of physical reality with Shaw’s fist connected with his temple. The skin split; blood run hot and copious down his face, dripped onto the floor. Charles realized he was on his hands and knees. He tried to order his muscles to move, but it was like his mind had disconnected from his body. 

Shaw was talking—laughing? Hard to tell—and Charles felt pain starbust from his cheekbone, maddening. Reeling, he managed to throw himself on his side on the floor away from—oh. Shaw’s boot. 

Abrutply, the wall by their side erupted in metal spikes like a military phalanx. Shaw diverted them with his hands and they screeched and went for Charles instead, only to meet with a dome of resistance that shielded him, and bent them at odd angles. The room was now impossible to navigate. Charles struggled to sit up as the spikes exploded in a shower of shrapnel. The metal brace on Charles’ hand began to heat and spike like a club. 

Something was clutching at his good arm, and Charles turned around nearly blindly and found Erik crouching at his side. His mouth was moving, but hearing was beyond Charles, his mind burning away like crisp dry autumn leaves. 

The right side of Erik’s face was covered in scratches, slow beads of blood sipping from abraded skin. A long cut flowed ruby with split skin from the swell of Erik’s brow through his strong nose. Charles could see bone. 

The spinning stopped. For a fraction of a second, Charles stared at the cut and hung in utter, complete silence. Then, momentarily, black and red overcame his vision, and the fire of Baskerville’s wrath burned cold like ice. The firebird licking away at Charles’ mind flinched and recoiled, shrieking, batting large feathery wings against the rising hellspawn shape of Charles’ telepathy, incensed with hatred black as the void. 

The world snapped abruptly into shape, and Charles felt awareness of his body return in the shape of maddening pain from his broken wrist and battered face. 

Baskerville materialized suddenly in front of them, bigger than a horse. Beneath the heat of his paws the tiles of the floor snapped and fractured. 

Almost immediately, tendrils of diamond-silver thrust forward and coiled around him, trying to contain him. Charles gritted his jaw and sent out a pulse of heat hot enough to evaporate glass. Frost’s mind fractured like a mirror and vanished. Charles would deal with her later. 

“Sebastian,” he said, voice calm and cold. “How nice of you to join us.” 

“Over you little episode, my dear?”

“I encountered some technical difficulties,” admitted Charles, using Erik’s shoulder to get to his feet. Erik remained on his crouch by his side, his hand wrapping firmly around Charles’ knee. Without thinking, Charles reached out and smoothed down Erik’s tangled hair, petting him. Erik exhaled. Pale and blood-splattered, he looked like a gargoyle more than the handsome man he was. That cut across his nose would leave a thick scar. One more for the collection Shaw had given him already. 

“I was coming to collect my pet,” Shaw smiled. “I rather think you’ve enjoyed quite enough of his attention.”

He directed a pointed, charged look at both of their bodies, covered only by boxers. 

Charles smiled. Holding Shaw’s eyes out of the corner of his, he tipped Erik’s head up by the chin and kissed his lips, gentle and sweet. 

“No longer yours, I think,” he murmured, grinning. 

Shaw’s hand darted forward and touched one of the metal spikes. Erik uncoiled form is crouch like a snake ready to strike, slipping in front of Charles and holding out his hands to command the metal. Charles ducked to the side, rolling away towards the wall where he wouldn’t inconvenience Erik’s movements if it came to a physical fight. 

“Erik, get the helmet!”

But he felt Erik’s metallokinesis slip-slide over the helmet, never managing to grasp it. 

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, getting unsteadily to his feet. 

Someone was banging on the door, but damnit, Erik had fused the tumblers on the lock. Charles dived to the side and snaked through the spears on the floor to get to the window, acutely aware of all the times Erik shielded him from Shaw. Without his telepathy, Charles was as good as useless, and an obstacle diverting Erik’s attention from the fight. He couldn’t get Shaw and keep Charles safe. Charles needed to remove himself from the equation. 

A puff of acrid smoke startled him, and Kurt threw an arm around his waist and lifted him up against him, Charles’ chest to his side. The teleportation was vertiginous, disconcerting. Kurt had to steady him once they had reappeared in the courtyard, murmuring an apology for the rough journey. 

“Charles!” Raven gripped his arm, golden eyes wide. “What the fuck is going on up there? There’s strange mutants all over the facility!”

“Shaw’s decided to go proactive,” answered Charles, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he glanced up at his demolished bedroom window, where he could see flashes of movement. “He’s up there with Erik.” 

“Should we help him?” Alex struggled out of his sleeping shirt and handed it to Charles, who took it absently in his hands. 

Indecisiveness wracked through Charles. Could, realistically, Erik kill Shaw? Erik’s wide range of abilities all bore down to the same thing—impact attacks. And Shaw could not only repel those but use them to fuel his own strength. Whatever Erik threw his way would only leave him at a greater disadvantage, but on the other hand—on the other hand, Shaw was the architect of all of Erik’s pain, the maker of scars, the crafter of nightmares. He was the root of all the hatred that burned Erik alive, and Erik had a right to face this on his own, didn’t he? 

He couldn’t risk asking him directly, not when any sort of distraction could be the opportunity Shaw needed to kill Erik. If he wanted him dead and not enslaved again, which was not what the man had said earlier. Baskerville flared into existence with a low rolling growl, seething at the mere idea. 

Erik was Charles’. No one else could have him. 

“Charles?” 

He clenched his hands on the soft fabric of the shirt, gritting his jaw. 

“Leave him to it,” he decided, turning away from the window. “Let’s get this facility under control. Kurt, find Moira and convince her to start a facility-wide evacuation, then come back for me.”

He shrugged into the shirt, ignoring the maddening pain in his arm. 

“Warren, make sweeps. Don’t let a single enemy mutant leave this place, cover the human’s retreat. Alex, Beast: Shaw and Erik won’t stay where they are long, there’s not enough room for them to fight. They’ll fall back into this courtyard, and you need to be out of Erik’s way, understood? He won’t bat an eyelash if he kills you because you got in his way, so _don’t_ get in his way. You know the complex better than your enemies; ambush them, hunt them down, absolutely kick them when they’re down. Fuck politeness. Kill everyone.” 

“Where are you going, bub?” Logan grasped his arm and whirled him around, frowning. There was blood all down his face, but his skin was unmarred. Bullet to the forehead, probably. 

“Emma Frost has outmaneuvered me and made a fool of me twice, and it’s twice too fucking many. She’s in this town now. I’m going to get rid of her permanently.” 

A young man was running by, following the evacuation order. Charles snagged his mind: _give me your jeans._

The man was taller and broader and the jeans clung low and trailed the floor. It wasn’t anywhere near up to Charles’ usual standards, but it would do for the duration. His bare feet might be more of a complication, but he couldn’t waste any more time in inconsequential things—he needed to go to Venezuela immediately. 

Logan gripped his arm and steered him away from the commotion and into a doorway, just as the wall around his bedroom window exploded outwards, plaster and metal raining down into the courtyard. Erik came flying out after it, slammed into the wall and slid five feet down before he caught the magnetic waves and started hovering again. Charles winced. 

Logan arched a brow and jabbed his thumb in Erik’s direction. 

“You sure your lovebird there can handle himself?”

“You go on and try to help him,” Charles suggested. “You’ll be a bloody stain on the cement forever, but oh, what a pretty stain you’ll be.”

“You’re damaged, did you know that?”

“No, what a novelty,” muttered Charles, twisting his arm away from Logan’s grasp. He snapped his fingers and watched Baskerville materialize in front of him, eyes like coals. _Keep the ground clear around Erik_ , he ordered. _If you get a chance at all, control Shaw immediately._

Kitty Pryde slid silently through the wall at their side, panting. 

“You might want to move away from the wall,” she said breathlessly. 

Exchanging a glance, Logan and Charles obeyed. Then flinched when a powerful impact cracked the wall form the other side, fractures splintering in front of their eyes. 

“Leviathan,” Kitty explained briefly, pushing her bangs away from her face. “What a spectacular dickhead.”

“Language, dear,” chided Charles. 

Logan gave him an incredulous look. 

“Well? I’m looking out for our young, that’s all.”

Kurt puffed into existence right in front of them, long tail flicking uneasily. 

“I got Moira to safety,” he said quietly. “This whole place is a mess, though.” 

The support beams on the ceilings surrounding the courtyard erupted from their moorings and into the air, turning into long wickedly sharp spears and plunging into the whole in the wall that had once been Charles’ bedroom wall. They bounced against it as if having hit some sort of force-field and fell to the courtyard, bouncing in a cacophony of twisted metal and fracturing cement. Logan tugged Charles behind himself and covered him from the debris. A shard of metal beam flew inches from Kurt’s face and went right through Kitty’s eyes, harmless. 

Charles sighed. 

“Kitty, do be careful. Kurt, come on, we’re going to Venezuela.”

“Venezuela?” Kitty blinked at him. 

“I’ll be right along, dear,” Charles shushed her. “Just have to take care of something—“

The sky split open, rain falling down in sheets that made visibility almost impossible. The dust that had risen from the broken cement of the floor settled and turned into thick, restraining mud. Erik stood, almost naked, in the downpour. The water washed his face from the blood that covered it, running in pink rivulets down his heaving chest. Above him, cape plastered to her back, Ororo’s eyes were white as snow. 

“Well now we’re fucked,” Logan said flatly. “Those two together are—“

“Not currently our problem,” Charles interrupted briskly. He was pleased by Ororo’s decision to aid Erik; with her backup and Baskerville ready to use whatever means necessary to provide him with cover, Erik should do well against Shaw until Charles could deal with Frost in a permanent fashion, and then turn the full power of his own attention to help him. 

“We all have our fights,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Alright, Kurt—“

“I’m coming with,” Logan interrupted, grasping Charles’ arm again, a grip like a steel vice. A bolt of white-hot pain shot up his arm, and Charles immediately disabled the recognition of pain. He’d have to face the possibility of damaging the nerve. He couldn’t afford to flinch every time he moved his arm. “I owe that bitch a claw or six to the face.” 

“Oh joy,” Charles rolled his eyes. “Come on then, Kurt. We’re going to Caracas, I’ll put the location right into your mind. One last thing—Kitty. Defend the facility for as long as you can, but if the situation turns untenable, don’t hesitate to withdraw and save your lives.”

After a brief hesitation, he reached out and linked to his mutant’s minds. 

_If all else fails_ , he murmured into them. _Fall back to this position._

“Oh god,” Kitty blinked. “What is that place?”

Charles sighed. “A place I haven’t gone to in a long time. It’ll be safe—I’ve made sure it’s uninhabited.” 

Kurt’s hand wrapped around his other wrist, and there was a dizzying increase of pressure, a disconcerting lack of gravity that felt simultaneously like he was being stretched and compacted. Like all anchoring him to any sort of existence was the hands at his wrist and arm and the steady beat of their minds—Logan’s a violent, dizzying whirlwind without heads or tails, Kurt’s a soft velvet-lined box of faith and calm.

When he came back to himself Charles was leaning heavily against Kurt, whose arms were tightly around him. Beneath his feet the carpet lining the hotel room’s floors were soft and expensive. 

A flash of movement in the periphery of his vision caught his attention. He shielded himself in steel before the wave of Frost’s telepathy hit him, the power of it bouncing harmlessly away from him. Kurt went slack and fell to the floor like a sack of rocks, and nothing but the muffled buzz of his mind told Charles he was alive. Logan hissed and fell to his knees, mind hastily attempting to repair the damage inflicted by the wave of destruction. 

“Rough and inefficient,” Charles noted coldly, emotion fading quickly as his mind absorbed the distance between him and Baskerville. Split in two, fractured down the middle, what was left of the Charles in the arguably fragile vessel of his body was nothing but power and reason. “Just like you, Emma.” 

She was dressed in a coral-colored dress covered by a snow-white silk dressing gown, loose and open around her like a cloud. As always she was beautiful, but Charles saw through the beauty down to the brittle bitter core of her, and what he saw wasn’t pretty. 

“It worked on your boytoy for a long time,” she murmured. 

“You used vinegar when you could have used honey,” Charles sighed. “Things could have been very different. But the Erik you wanted wasn’t the powerful one—that Erik would never be submissive.”

“And the real Erik?” Emma tilted her head. “Is that the one you let pin you down and fuck you?”

Charles smiled. “Yes. Precisely that one. Did you think I’d be ashamed? Erik really is a good shag. There’s nothing to blush about.”

Emma laughed. “You’re nothing but a pricey whore.” 

“Oh, believe me,” Charles said sweetly. “A pricey whore is but a _fraction_ of what I am.”

Emma’s telepathy surged up against him like a tide, licking at his shields. Charles allowed his shields to expand outwards like a dome, splintering her power beneath their weight. Emma flinched and pulled back immediately, face twisting into an ugly snarl. 

“You can’t defeat me,” Charles spread his hands. “So why not simply let me—“

He didn’t see it coming. Whatever it was—something metallic and heavy—hit him in the shoulder. Pain blossomed across his arm and chest like creeping fingers of fire. He recoiled and gripped the spot, bewildered at the fact she had fucking _thrown_ something at him like a fifties’ bloody wife—and didn’t see her coming until it was too late. His telepathy scrambled for purchase, but she was well-shielded. Stunned, he managed only at the last second to duck out of the way of her letter opener. 

A latter opener, for fuck’s sake. If anyone in the whole fucking world even kept one of those on hand, it bloody well had to be Emma Frost. 

“Have you gone mad?” He asked, flabbergasted, staggering away from her. 

“I can’t defeat your mind,” she hissed. “But you’re weak as a child without Erik’s body around, and I sure as hell can take _you_ down. I can see Sebastian almost did the job himself, anyway.”

With Baskerville the great part of a continent away, fear was beyond Charles. It was an instinctive enough response to a life threatening situation that Charles’ rational mind saw the merits of calling the hound back to himself. But some vestige, something dark and vicious curled deeply in his mind, revolted against it. Emotion was Erik. Erik needed help, so he got Baskerville. 

Charles spared a glance at Logan, writhing on the floor having taken complete and absolute leave of his senses. Bloody useless. How only excuse to be making such a spectacle of himself was if Emma was scrambling his brain like eggs, and that was highly unlikely. So many promises of claws to people’s faces and this is where it all ended. What a disgrace. 

Emma was advancing on him again. Thinking quickly, Charles backed away from her, circling the couch in the direction of the door as his mind cast out for useful hotel staff he could take control off. Emma’s own telepathy barred his way, and he struck out at it viciously, like the paw of tiger, minding no manners. The woman flinched and gritted her teeth as a drop of bright red blood dripped form her nose. 

They weren’t matched. They weren’t fucking matches, so why couldn’t Charles kill her with a flick of his mind? Something was wrong. He turned away again the urge to call the hound to himself, and for a dizzying moment the rational denial of an emotional need overlapped two visions—what Charles was seeing with his own eyes and what Erik was seeing, in the carpark outside the facility as he rolled away from a car thrown his way, caught the car and turned it into a weapon. Good clever lad. 

When his vision returned entirely to the hotel room, he had the briefest of seconds to flinch away from her blade. It might have been aimed at his eye, but Charles’ backwards motion drove it instead through his nostril and sliced down his lips, deep enough a fountain of blood splattered them both. Charles swallowed a cry of pain and fell to the side, rolling away with very little dignity only to find that he’d rolled on the wrong side—on his injured arm. 

The pain was stunning. Blindly, he scrambled to his knees and threw out his mind to track her advance by the signal of her telepathy, hard and cold like ice. 

“Not so pretty anymore,” laughed Emma. 

Charles found a wall and dragged himself up, nestling his broken wrist in the metal cast against his roiling stomach. He couldn’t black out the pain from his split lips and nose without paralyzing his face, so he had to put up with it, and it was like nothing he’d experienced in years. Professorial life was tame enough, and even with several months of hunting Shaw down with the CIA he’d always had someone at his shoulder to watch out for him. Physically, he was weak; he’d always known that. That was one of the reasons he’d been so attracted to Erik’s sheer physical power—Erik would always be the shield, especially once he became homicidally protective. 

Somewhere in the past what had been done to him in a lab strapped to a metal table had to have been worse than a blade to the face, but if it had, Charles could not bloody remember it at the moment. 

Emma shifted the grip of her weapon and tilted her head to get the hair out of her eyes. 

“You were stupid to come here alone. You’re worthless in a fight.”

Charles wanted to say some sort of clever retort back, but the mere idea of moving his lips was agonizing, so he kept quiet and kept himself limited to a vicious glare. Instead, he allowed his mind to settle within its bounds, split in half across the distance of a continent, and considered his current situation. 

Something was obviously wrong with his telepathy. Emma was nothing but scum compared to his own power, so the fact that he could not defeat her indicated something had taken place that diminished his power. Suppressants might have explained that, if she had somehow managed to get her hands onto the prison variety, which was fucking difficult to secure. Most suppressants killed telepaths. Even in an unsecure and corrupt system, obtaining the sort of suppressants that would only trap his telepathy inside himself was very nearly impossible—since they were controlled by the very people who despised mutants and would never allow one to have them. 

And anyway—is that had been the case surely she would be suffering the very same difficulties, which was not what was in evidence. 

Charles didn’t suppose she was one of those villains who liked to brag and talk before they killed the hero, who gloriously saved himself in the last possible minute. 

Of course, he was no hero, so there was a hitch with that plan regardless—

Emma lunged, face twisted into an ugly mask of hate. Charles recoiled, found the wall at his back. With nowhere to go but down he bent his knees and angled his body forward, throwing himself at her at a low and awkward position. His bony shoulder caught her stomach, driving the air from his lungs, but the letter opener fell down in an exquisite arc and found his back in retaliation 

Pain flared up through his torso. The blade sunk through the flesh and found a rib, lodging there with such determination that when Charles arched away, yelling in pain, the letter opened was wrenched from Emma’s hand. Unfortunately it stayed where it was stuck, and every movement of Charles’ back muscles made his vision tunnel with pain. 

Still somehow he had the presence of mind to reach out with a hand and catch her wrist before she managed to stagger out of range. Yanking with all his strength, he threw her off balance and had her crashing to the floor. Scuffling ensued, of the least dignified variety, but Charles managed to pin her to the ground with a knee in her stomach and his hand around her throat. Blood from his lip and nose dripped into her face, staining it bright red. Charles felt tired and dizzy; he realized blood loss was beginning to shut him down, and if he was going to win this fight it would have to be quickly. 

Emma sneered at him, clawing at his wrist so viciously she pierced the skin. 

“You think Erik will want you now I’ve ruined your pretty face?”

Charles armed his telepathy like a lance. _Unlike you, I’m worth more than just my face and what’s between my thighs._

Emma’s eyes went wide with hatred. 

Now they were in another predicament. Even with having managed to subdue her, Charles couldn’t use his strength to kill her. He simply wasn’t strong enough. He wouldn’t have been, more likely, in good condition, and he was already shaking and crashing. The adrenaline high form the fight would keep him going for a while yet, but she wasn’t going to politely die on her own. 

Charles glanced at Logan. Now he was twitching, on his front on the floor. You couldn’t even trust a demented murderer to do any demented murdering around these places. 

Emma showed her teeth in a blood-stained snarl. 

“Can’t get it up, darling?”

Charles made a disgusted sound. Even in his current position his manners prohibited backhanding her, which she still very much deserved, so he settled for tightening his grip on her throat. Anytime now, though, she’d start thrashing and fighting in earnest, and he knew he would not be able to keep her beneath him. 

He shifted his weight to press her more securely into the floor and caught sight of his metal cast. 

Ah. Right. 

Nasty business, but well. Not all the blood could be on Erik’s hands. 

Dispassionately, he brought the cast around and switched it quickly in place of his hand. Emma’s eyes widened, face washing of color. Charles changed his weight again to straddle her, pressing his knees into her sides. She began to thrash in earnest, and he gritted his teeth and focused all of his waning strength in pushing the cast back down against her trachea. This would be a messy kill, unsavory and slow. But it was the only thing he could do and she had to die. 

A mutant who would callously and unrepentantly manipulate dozens of mutant minds to serve her own greed at the orders of a master who kept her on a short leash could not be trusted to exist. 

Anyone could accuse Charles of being a callous, manipulative sociopath, but no one could ever control him, no one would ever give him orders, none could claim to be his master. Even Erik could only hope to hold him still for so long, and only is Charles allowed it. Baskerville would always take Erik’s side, but Baskerville was only one half of Charles. 

Oh. That explained why Charles’ powers were only working at half capacity, then. Erik was drawing strength from Baskerville, draining Charles himself. Well, that was alright, Charles supposed. 

He pushed down with all weight on the brace, crushing down on Emma’s throat. One of her hands found his hair and pulled savagely, but he grimly held on, gritting his teeth. The pain from his ruined face helped fuel his determination. He reminded himself this woman had all but ruined Erik’s brain, fracturing his mind to make him into nothing but a tool. Anger was impossible at this distance from Baskerville but he could muster enough cold resentment to strengthen his resolve to crush her trachea. 

Emma’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly her skin shifted from soft flesh and skin to hard crystal—no. Could that be diamond? Charles felt the metal of his brace grate against the hard surface and slip to the side. 

He hastily sought to compensate by shifting again to bring all of his body weight down on his arm—a stupid rookie mistake. Emma twisted sharply, bringing up her hips and canting them at an angle that unseated Charles from where he was straddling her. Charles went crashing to the floor on his side, surprised. Emma crawled to her knees and delivered a surprisingly accurate and strong punch to Charles’ nearby knee with a fist made of precious stone. The pain was maddening as the kneecap fractured with a loud crunch. 

Charles felt back to the floor screaming, until the scream tapered out into a sob. The movement of his jaw pulled his split lips’ the pain left him breathless. As he fell backwards the letter opened lodged in his rib bone was trapped against the floor on his back, slicing into muscle as the angle forced it free. 

Bloody fucking hell, she was better at this than he was. But she was unable to get to her feet even as she crawled away from him, retching and coughing miserably. Charles was no better—any movement of his leg jarred his broken knee, threatening to shut down his mind as shock encroached on him and adrenaline began to be insufficient to keep him going. 

He curled on the floor, clutching his leg, and watched warily as she managed to get to her feet. Charles had a choice now; call Baskerville back to himself to save his own life or let the hound stay with Erik and continue to protect him. For as long as Charles himself lived, Baskerville would guard Erik’s mind with all of its considerable power. If Charles took the risk to bring the hound back to save himself, Erik run the risk of dying. It would be the space of seconds, but in a fight like this an entire life could hinge in those precious seconds. 

_Me or Erik_ , thought Charles. _I already chose him once._

Emma came over to stand over him, glaring down. The sun broke into shards against the faceted diamond of her skin. She was stunning. As last things seen before death went, she was quite alright, Charles thought. 

A flash of movement caught Charles’ eye as Logan surged up from his crumpled position on the floor and drove three claws deep enough into Emma’s diamond-hard stomach that his knuckled hit the surface and split open. 

Emma convulsed, face crumpling into shock. 

“Impossible,” she managed. 

“Indestructible metal,” sneered Logan. 

With a cold blood that Charles would not have given him credit for, he drew back his other hand and plunged the claws into her throat just as it turned from diamond to soft pliant flesh. The spray of blood reached even Charles nearly a meter away. 

Emma’s body fell limp to the floor without another sound. Logan grunted and drew back his claws, getting his right feet out from under her shoulder. 

“Had it comin’,” he muttered crossly. 

Charles let himself slump on the floor, though he couldn’t quite help the sound of pain that it tore out of his throat. Logan turned around and stomped over, crouching over him. He didn’t seem to know where to put his hands, and in the end judged the safest place to be Charles’ stomach. 

“She got you good, Charlie,” he said quietly, frowning at his ruined face. “You need a hospital.” 

Charles swallowed bile and blood and shook his head weakly. _Kurt. Is he dead?_

Logan glanced over and appeared to pay attention for a moment. “Nah, he’s alright. Just sleepin’. You want me to wake him up, take you to a clinic?”

_To the CIA facility_ , replied Charles, closing his eyes. _Back to Erik._

Logan sighed. “For a cold blooded murdering sociopath you sure are a romantic.”

Charles huffed in amusement. The air made a bubble of blood form in the seam of his split lips, Charles inhaled sharply, scrabbling at the floor. Logan dropped to his knees and unceremoniously turned him on his side, cradling his skull. There wasn’t much in Charles’ stomach to crawl up his throat, but what little was did so. 

“That has to be all sorts of unhygienic in an open wound,” said Logan, and cursed quietly when he saw the blood spreading from the wound in Charles’ back. “She seriously did a number on you. Just don’t move, I’ll get Kurt.”

Some quiet words and a few gentle pats to the cheek roused a confused and dazed Kurt. It took a long moment before Charles felt steady enough to suffer the teleportation. Logan suggested to carry him, but when he tried to slip his arms under Charles’ knees, the pain made him cry out, and neither Logan nor Kurt had the stomach to lift him when he was so obviously in pain. 

“Hush, hush, we’ll go like this,” mumbled Kurt, combing his hair tenderly back from his forehead. “I’ll be extra careful. Let me just go there quickly and pick a spot to land and settle you. I’ll be right back.”

Kurt disappeared in a burst of acrid smoke. Sometime in the future Charles should maybe tell him he himself had killed his father. No, that was probably not going to happen. 

“He’s a good kid,” said Logan, petting Charles in the shoulder gently. “We’ll have you back to your murderous psychopath of a boyfriend in no time.” 

He paused, leaning close to examine Charles’ face. “That’s gonna scar ugly.”

Charles closed his eyes and though _fuck you_. 

Logan chuckled. “Well, you’ve still got your pretty baby-blues. You’re still worth more than a suck in a street corner for a couple bucks, if you know what I mean.”

_You’re crass and I detest you_ , murmured Charles. 

Kurt reappeared right next to them and gripped Charles’ wrist in a soft, gentle hand. “Things are going to shit over there but I figure it’s best if we take him to Erik. He won’t go anywhere else anyway.”

“Going to shit how?” asked Logan, but Kurt was already grasping his jacket and teleporting. 

‘Going to shit’ was seemingly a loose term for ‘hell on earth’. Half the facility was on fire. The other half had collapsed to rubble and twisted metal. All around mutants were at war, powers clashing without any sort of order or consideration to fellow teammates. Turning on his back Charles could see Ororo attempting to muster clouds to rain in the fire, but being continuously derailed by what could only be some sort of angel-like man with a spear. 

Logan looked around, stunned. “How fucking long were we gone? This is World War Three! What the everlovin’ fuck!”

Abruptly Baskerville materialized at his side. The surge of power made Charles’ spine bow off the floor in a curve that made the wound scream in pain. The return of his full awareness was like a starburst, nearly overwhelming him. It also allowed him a use to his ability that permitted the disdain of nerves inflamed with pain. The lack of agony almost made Charles faint as he began to relax. 

_Logan, help me sit up._

Logan slid an arm under his shoulders and propped him up against the inside of his thigh so he could see what was happening around them. Charles casted out his mind like a web and recognized the telepathic alterations done to the mutants on Shaw’s side. 

Baskerville’s eyes glowed like coals as he found the damage and erased it. The mutants hesitated as one, confused by the sudden knowledge cascading into their minds and Charles tore down layers upon layers of deceit built around Frost and Shaw. It was exhilarating to have full use of his gift after the distressing inability to use it while he was away from Baskerville. 

_Erik_ , he thought calmly. _Frost is dead. I have his mutants._

Erik had acquired a pair of jeans at some point in the fight, and they were already ripped and blood-streaked. Shirtless and barefooted, covered in blood and dirt, he still looked imposing when he stepped in front of Charles and addressed Shaw, only then emerging from a cocoon of twisted metal beams. 

“Your pet telepath is dead, Shaw,” he said, voice carrying as the mutants all around them faltered in their attack, confused. Erik looked around, fierce eyes taking everyone in. “Listen! Shaw’s been manipulating and twisting us for years. Check for yourselves. Think. Charles has lifted all the lies and all the damage Frost did to your minds. You know the truth now.” 

There was a long pause. 

Charles threaded his mind out gently into theirs. _I can stop him, If you get that helmet off his head_.

The silence that followed was ominous and heavy. Then activity exploded all across the parking lot as the mutants turned from a free-for-all brawl of the savage kind to a common single target. 

Erik cast a glance around and judged they could keep Shaw entertained for a few moments, long enough for him to afford stalking over to Charles and dropping to his knees at his side. 

“What did this?” he asked quietly as he cradled Charles’ head tenderly in his hands and turned him to look at his face. 

_Letter opener._

“What!?”

_I know._

“But she’s dead.”

_Without a doubt._  
“We’ll get you fixed up soon enough. Where else are you hurt?”

_Broken kneecap. Stab to the back. Pretty sure I fucked up my wrist beyond all possible belief. I might have sprained a few other things, but I can’t rightly tell._

“I can’t fucking leave you alone five minutes,” muttered Erik, glancing at Charles’ knee. It was covered by the loose jeans so there was nothing to see, and he straightened a little to look around. He caught sight of something and beckoned with his hand. “You there. Katherine. Piotr. Come over here and stay with Charles. Logan, I need you in the battle, go. Kurt, you too.” 

Logan deftly maneuvered Charles down onto his back on the floor and took the orders to effect a considerable amount of violence in the vicinity of one Sebastian Shaw with ungodly glee. More reluctantly, Kurt rose and disappeared to join the fray. The movement has thankfully not jarred Charles’ knee, but since that wasn’t the only thing in his body that protested motion, his breath still hitched in his throat. Baskerville’s growl was low and deep. 

“Can you hold on until this is over?” Erik asked quietly as Kitty rushed over to kneel next to Charles. Piotr crouched behind Charles’ head, metal-plated face twisted in concern. 

_I’ll have to_ , sighed Charles. _Unless you know of another telepath that can hold him still for you._

Erik hesitated. “Jean—“

_No. You don’t want to stir whatever lies in there. It’s angry and it’s hungry. I can do this. Just—make some haste, yes, love?_

Erik arched a brow. “Anything for you, dear. It’s not like we’re at war over here. I’ll have you at the hospital for your afternoon tea.”

_Afternoon tea is bullshit_ , groused Charles. _I don’t know who the hell came up with that, but they weren’t—_

“You’re obviously well enough to be insufferable, so I’ll just go finish my business. You two keep an eye on him. If anything gets too close, smash it. Kitty—“

“Anything gets too close, I make him immaterial. I know. It’s okay, you can go.”

Erik dipped down and pressed an exquisitely delicate kiss to Charles’ ruined lips. The pain was maddening, but when Erik pulled back his lips were stained bright red with blood, and Baskerville was up in flames immediately, as if a can of gasoline had been poured over him. There was probably some sort of obscure psychological explanation for that, but bugger if Charles could decipher it at the moment. 

Erik licked his lips and stood up, feline and predatory, and stalked away into the battle with a feral sort of grace. 

Kitty and Piotr took positions, Kitty holding onto Charles’ good wrist and Piotr crouching by his head, ready to spring into action or shield them both depending on what the situation demanded. 

A rumble of thunder announced the lightning before it fractured the grey-covered mid-morning sky. Rain poured down on them, settling the dust that had risen with the battle and smothering the fires in what was left of the facility. Free of the winged man’s attacks, Ororo had taken control of the weather and was attempting to make some hasty damage control. It was all for the better that she hadn’t joined in the fight—too many hands were eager to tear Shaw apart already and more would only turn into an inconvenience. 

Charles lay on his back and watched with detached interest as Erik took command of the mutants, turning a chaotic, uncoordinated broil into a disciplined and ordered attack. His talent for command emerged as soon as he had the chance to give orders and be heard. The mutants fell in line, reacting automatically to authority. Those who might have revolted or failed to hear were quickly dealt with by Baskerville’s automatic response to a threat to Erik; the telepathic order to comply or withdraw, or else die on the spot.

It wasn’t easy. Shaw was devious and he knew how to protect himself, especially from impact-based attacks. Erik organized the mutants to use the impact-oriented gifts as distractions, and instructed them to use strength enough to bother Shaw but not feed his own gift. Alex Summers learned quickly to use his gift only as a herding tool, keeping Shaw boxed in where they wanted him without giving him his plasma blasts to feed off of. 

It was keeping Shaw in check, but it certainly wasn’t taking him down fast, and Charles could feel himself begin to slip down the slope towards unconsciousness. 

_This is taking too bloody long_ , he complained. 

_Agreed_ , replied Erik, thoughtfully looking around at his neatly divided squadrons of mutants as his mind turned over new possibilities of attack and distraction. His own gift was quite useless against someone who could deflect what he threw at them, so he was left to coordinate the battle from outside until that helmet was removed. 

He looked over his shoulder at the rubble of the facility and Charles saw as a spark catch fire in his mind. 

Erik smiled. It wasn’t nice. 

He reached out a hand without looking and gripped Scott Summer’s elbow, bring him in close. 

“Watch over this for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Scott nodded grimly. His laser vision would only help Shaw, so he was keeping in the sidelines near his brother, watching, helping organize the attacks. Scott was useless for pretty much everything under the sun, but he did have a talent for command that sometimes, on a good sunny day, emerged in helpful ways. 

Erik sprinted away into the ruins of the facility just as Ororo landed next to Charles and crouched down. She’d acquired some sort of medical kit along the way, and now flicked it open. 

“This will probably hurt, but I need to at least staunch the bleeding,” she said calmly as she found gauze and tape and ripped open the packets. Piotr’s big hand, turned soft from the wrist down, slipped onto Charles’ good one. 

“Squeeze my hand if it hurts,” he murmured. 

It hurt. 

By the end of it Charles was light-headed and nearly insensate, but Ororo had managed to press a gauze to his lips and nose, immobilized his knee and even taped bandages to his stab wound. It was battlefield medicine, not nearly careful enough to save Charles’ live permanently, but as patch-up jobs went it was alright. 

Erik returned, at a glance having done nothing to tip the battle either way, but Charles could feel his gift moving something like slithering snakes of metal across the floor, in a wide enough arc that Shaw wouldn’t see them coming up his rear. 

_Cables_ , he realized suddenly. 

_Copper_ , Erik thought smugly, nodding. 

_Well get on with it already!_

Even from a distance Charles could see Erik roll his eyes. 

Charles relaxed back and closed his eyes, gathering his telepathy around him like a cloak. Baskerville prowled the ground around Erik, growling whenever anyone got too close, sending sharp jabs of pain in Shaw’s direction in the off chance that the helmet had a weak spot—it did not. 

The battle continued like a whirlwind, with mutants attacking Shaw left and right and not always being repelled. Shaw’s power was depleting fast, but not fast enough to Charles and Erik to trust he would be exhausted before Charles fainted. Erik had to act quickly, now while Charles was conscious enough to hold Shaw fast while Erik finished him. 

Kurt would have been invaluable for this if not for the fact that Shaw _never stayed still_. Kurt had attempted to grasp the helmet by teleporting and had missed enough times to exhaust himself, and in the end Erik had dismissed him from the fight altogether—more than likely counting on using him as a last resort in case Shaw prevailed and Charles needed to be evacuated. Charles didn’t need to be a telepath to identify pointed glanced conveying silent orders from a commander to a soldier. Also, Kurt tended to hover very obviously at Charles’ head. 

Subtlety, thy name is not Kurt Wagner. 

Shaw’s eyes fixed suddenly on Charles. The man must have realized by then that he was the key of the attack. He started forward, clearly intent on taking the fight to Charles, but the ranks of mutants closed quickly in front of him, whether by instinct or led by the knowledge that whatever happened, they needed Charles alive. 

Piotr curved protectively over Charles’s lying form, not yet covering him but ready. Kitty’s hand tightened on his wrist as she shifted her weight. Out of the corner of his eye Charles could see Kurt’s tail flicking uneasily before it reached out and wrapped itself snugly around Charles’ upper arm. 

All this tenderness and protectiveness was starting to get on Charles’ nerves. He wasn’t a fucking invalid, for God’s sake. He’d survived torture as a child; a broken knee and a stab to the back weren’t about to do him in. He did carefully avoid thinking of what his face would look like when this was all done and over, though. Certainly not symmetric. 

Logan darted into Shaw’s person space and swiped his claws down across his chest, raking them down viciously from shoulder to hip. No one was more surprised to actually make damage than Logan himself, though, and there was a moment of hesitation as Shaw curled himself around the new injuries, crying out. Logan stared at him, nonplussed. 

Erik acted immediately, the snakes of cable shooting in, lightning-fast. They wrapped around the helmet and in one swift, elegant movement, yanked it up and away. 

Baskerville surged forward like an arrow. Charles wrapped himself around Shaw’s mind like a harness, securing it entirely and asserting his dominance over him. The man froze. Charles slithered down to the deepest, brightest part, the star of Shaw’s power, and admired its harsh and cold beauty before snuffling it completely. 

He smiled as he withdrew, caressing his mind like a lover as he did so. Shaw stumbled, gasping, and fell to his knees. He stared at his hands, at the way they trembled. 

Erik frowned. “He’s still moving, Charles.”

_Oh, let him move_ , he murmured into all the minds around him, stretching lazily like a satisfied cat, carding fingers of power through their thoughts like an affectionate father. _He’s human now._

The parking lot fell into a stunned silence. Erik’s shock transmuted quickly into mad glee, but he moved slowly as he approached Shaw, kneeling shakily in the dirt. 

“Kleine Sebastian Shaw,” he murmured gently, smiling. Shaw’s eyes were wide and panicked as he stared up at Erik, but Charles had to give it to him—he didn’t beg, and he didn’t try to reason with his victims. He must have known there would be no stopping Erik—not now that he had the power to exert the revenge he had thirsted for for nearly a hundred years. 

Erik crouched in front of Shaw and smiled at him. 

“All that pride and in the end you die like the very thing you despise so much.”

“I still made you what you are,” Shaw said in a low voice. “You’re still _my_ creation. You can live forever knowing that much.”

Erik patted his cheek mockingly. “Don’t flatter yourself. You might have created something from the child I was, but this—this I am now, is entirely of Charles’ creation.”

Shaw had the nerve to smile coldly at Erik. “All those scars are still my doing.”

Erik gripped Shaw’s jaw with his fingertips, and with his free hand he called a sharp shard of metal to his hand and shaped it into a wide, wicked knife. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he said calmly, smiling. “Charles and I will keep living. Maybe we’ll take over the world at some point. We tend to get bored. But you’re not going to be here to see it, and I’m never going to think of you again. You’ll be forgotten. Like the worthless scum you’ve always been.” 

He moved in, lover-close, and slid the knife brutally into Shaw’s heart, with flawless aim. Shaw tried to move away, and Erik slid his arm around his back and kept him close so the makeshift handle of the knife dig into his own chest. Shaw thrashed weakly. Erik watched form up close as the life left his eyes, and then when he was about to die, he dropped him like a broken doll and stood up. 

He didn’t stay around for when Shaw exhaled his last breath. Instead, he moved swiftly to Charles, lying on the floor with his eyes closed covered in gauze and blood. 

“He went out like a light after what he did to Shaw,” Piotr said quietly. 

Erik nodded and quickly slid his arms under Charles’ body, gathering into his arms. 

“Kurt, take us to a hospital. Ororo, gather the mutants and put some order into this. The humans will be coming back soon.” 

Ororo nodded, already shouting orders when Kurt, Erik and Charles disappeared in a cloud of thick smoke.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank you all for sticking up with me for how long this thing dragged out which, let's all be honest, was too bloody long. You've all been more than wonderful--you're been the absolute best readers ever. 
> 
> Also thank you Pangea for reminding me way back when that this story still existed and someone out there gave half a shit. THANK YOU LOVE. _I did the right thing marrying you_.
> 
> ETA: look i don't know why this computer keeps fucking up my formatting, or if it's AO3 not working properly, or what, but I have copied, pasted and deleted and copy pasted again the text a half dozen times and it's not showing me the italics and honestly, I have had enough with this fucking Friday. Charles' mouth is pretty much stitched shut so anything he says, imagine in italics. Thank you for your cooperation.

He came back to awareness with an odd feeling, like powder dissolving into the air, in reverse. 

The first thing he registered was the pain. He must have made a sound, because hands were at his shoulders, squeezing gently. 

“You’re alright,” Erik’s voice, scratchy and rough—from sleep, Charles thought, as he struggled to open his eyes. The right wouldn’t cooperate. The pain was mind-wracking. The wariness of the strange way he’d awakened, so different from his usual abrupt snap-to, began slowly to morph into rising panic. 

“Charles,” Erik said, calm in the face of what had to be a truly formidable rise of telepathic panic like wildfire. “You’re alright. You’re safe.” 

Charles tried to open his mouth to tell him what was wrong, and the pain hit him like lightning, fracturing reality into jagged, cutting fragment. Erik’s hands tightened on his shoulders, but his voice was still calm as he murmured something insistently, his voice growing smoother as he talked. 

“—n stitches. It’s still swollen, that’s why you can’t open your right eye. But you’re safe.”

The telepath’s mind stopped, rewind and re-listened. 

_Nine stitches?_ He asked warily. 

Erik’s relief at Charles’ obvious conscious input was palpable. 

“Yes. Two on your temple, one in your nostril, two internal and two external in each lip, two in your chin. Your eye is fine, just swollen.” He hesitated for a moment. “That’s just your face. There are other things.” 

Charles’ telepathy unfurled like sails in a strong wind, like seeking tendrils of awareness spreading out to his limbs to check on his own body, and then, by extension, on Erik’s. 

Erik had a new, quite impressive scar to add to his eclectic collection. The thick cut from his brow and down across the bridge of his straight nose hadn’t been stitched—god help the poor miserable nurse that’d tried to put a needle near Erik’s face without Charles’ derision as a buffer—and Charles could see it would leave a lasting mark. 

Charles wasn’t so lucky. Apart from the damage to his face, he had permanently ruined the nerves in his fractured left arm, which would now only respond intermittently, and had five stitches on his back where Emma’s letter opener had attempted to take up permanent residence in his ribcage. His right leg was in a thigh-to-ankle brace, his knee fractured into several disassociated fragments. 

Plainly put. He’d never walk without the aid of a cane again, was probably facing the possibility of several weeks in a wheelchair and then several weeks with crutches before he even got to the cane, his left hand would never recover full dexterity and range of movement, and his face. Well. 

Vanity was the sort of obsolete, useless emotion Charles knew he should get rid of—could, in fact, get rid of, with a flick of his mind—but it was still very much an emotion he indulged in regularly. He’d always been a lovely man to look at, knew how to present himself to be even lovelier. Appearance was the easiest and fastest way of manipulation. Cleverly used, the choice of clothes could either heighten awareness of your looks or diminish it. Charles was an expert in every way or form of manipulation, and knew the value of good looks as well as anyone else. 

Despair settled over him like a heavy blanket, crushing and cold. There was, of course, the fact that he’d never be considered beautiful again, but besides that was the deeper, colder, bitter realization that anonymity was beyond him from this point onwards. A man with brilliant blue eyes and a distinctive scar down his face. He’d never walk, unrecognized, down the street again. Actually he wouldn’t be walking anywhere, he’d be awkwardly hobbling. Undignified.

He swallowed around a knot on his throat and gave up on his attempt to open his eyes. 

Erik sighed, sitting back down on his chair at Charles’ right. His hands fell away from Charles’ shoulders, but the right slid down until it rested, light, on Charles’ chest. 

“It’s bad now,” he said quietly. “But it’ll get better.”

Charles turned his face towards Erik and fought not to glare at him, because he didn’t think he wanted to move his facial muscles at the moment. 

“Well, maybe your days of early morning jogging are over.” 

The telepath snorted. _Only a psychopath like you would get up at six to go run._

Erik gestured at his own stomach with his free hand. “I put effort into keeping this figure for you.” 

Charles’s lips curled up in humor, but the pain dissipated his mirth immediately. 

“I don’t want to give you more morphine,” Erik said quietly. “I don’t want to risk an addiction.”

_It’s fine_ , Charles waved his right hand vaguely. _What happened after I passed out?_

Erik shrugged. “I brought you to the hospital. I’ve been here ever since. Moira came by,” he added with a derisive curl of his lips. “She said they got the mutants safe in a facility, wounds are minor, everyone’s cooperating, and other similar governmental bullshit. They raided Shaw’s facility, found hundreds of documents and proof that can set some of these mutants free.” 

Charles thought about that for a moment. _The ones declared dead would be wise to stay that way._

Erik nodded in agreement. “But there’s still the issue of their safety. Even if they do appear dead in paper, the government still knows they’re not in reality. That’s—“

_Oh for god’s sake, don’t start with the Holocaust trauma again_ , Charles cut in tiredly. _It starts with registration, then rounding up, and then elimination._ He parroted. _I know. I’ve heard it all before._

Erik gave him a flat look. “Thank you, for being so sensitive and understanding of my psychological scars.” 

_Fuck your psychological scars, you delicate little flower. I look like Freddy Krueger._

Erik stared at with a flat, unimpressed expression. Then the corners of his lips twitched up slightly. It took him another moment to burst out in loud peals of laughter, startlingly attractive in the sterile silence of the hospital room. 

Charles struggled not to join him. 

“You do a little,” he admitted, grinning so widely his canines were showing. 

_I’m never sucking your cock again_ , Charles sent petulantly. 

Erik choked on his own laughter and had to bend over to press his forehead to the bed, shaking with the force of it. Charles let his good right hand rest on the back of Erik’s head, gentle. 

Erik went limp against the bed, as if hours and hours of tension had finally been allowed to vaporize. Charles wondered if his life had been at risk. His injuries were mostly aesthetically displeasing and mobility-reducing, but he didn’t think any of them had been deep or severe enough to endanger his life, unless he’d gone into shock and not gotten attention immediately. Unlikely, considering how Erik tended to hover. 

Perhaps it was just the realization that Shaw was dead. The nightmare was over. Erik was a free man, able at last to look ahead instead of over his shoulder. Years of tension released all at once. It was probably as liberating as it was painful.

What now? Charles wondered. They were both of course legally dead. He supposed they could settle down somewhere far enough from society that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Charles was quite partial to being a cranky hermit at the moment. 

Erik straightened, resting his elbows on the edge of the bed, He wrapped a hand, firm but undemanding, around Charles’ good wrist. 

“You could stop that.”

_Hm? Stop what? I was just thinking. Solitary and isolated life seems like precisely what I need right now._

Erik arched his brows. “I don’t know what you were thinking. I was talking about the government knowledge. You could fix that.”

Charles started to frown and stopped, stiffening, when the pain reminded him his face had been almost split in two. Erik squeezed his wrist, offering something to focus on besides the pain. 

“You could easily wipe their minds,” he continued. “Make sure they got rid of all the documents. Make is so none of those mutants were ever revealed to the suits. Make it _safe_.”

_That sounds like an extraordinarily useless waste of my time and energy on people I essentially have no interest in._

“They’re mutants.”

_So? Mutants are more and more common these days. Hardly a species in danger of extinction. In fact, quite the opposite. Studies indicate—_

“Charles,” Erik said tightly. “They’ll be corralled and used like animals.”

_Erik, this isn’t the thirties. Human rights have evolved quite a bit in the last eighty years. Pick up a book, for god’s sake. Humanity has learned. They’ve come a long way._

“You’re defending humans?” asked Erik, somewhere in the middle between bewildered and furious. 

_I’m explaining my reluctance to expend a great deal in effort in a valueless venture._

Erik was quiet for a long while, long fingers idly tracing the path of dark-tinted veins beneath the delicate skin of Charles’ inner wrist. 

“Ororo told me you showed them something. A place. A house they could go to if everything went to hell and they had to retreat and hide.” He hesitated, glancing up at Charles. “You didn’t show it to me.” 

_There wasn’t time. I didn’t think you’re retreat in any case. It was win or die for you, I thought._

“It was,” Erik confirmed. “And I won. And now—now I have to live.” 

Charles spread open the fingers of his hand, and watched as the skin stretched over the shifting muscles. Hands were truly a work of art in bioengineering. Twenty-seven bones articulated by three different groups of muscles, all working in perfect harmony to achieve smooth, fluent motion. 

In his right hand, anyway. 

“You told them they could go there. They can still go there.” 

Charles stilled his hand. 

_I don’t remember donating my old Westchester manor to a mutant charity._

“You only own the property out of apathy. What difference does it make whether it’s used or not? You don’t want it. It could be put to good use.” 

_I don’t want it to be put to good use _, snapped Charles. _I want to burn it to the ground and the salt the fucking land.___

__Erik gritted his jaw. “Talk about fucking waste.”  
 _And if you could burn Auschwitz and make sure not even the ashed remained, would you instead let it be turned into—__ _

__“I hate Auschwitz,” snarled Erik. “I hate it with all my heart, I hate it—“ he choked, gritted his teeth so hard his jaw muscles flinched. With some effort, he managed to inhale deeply and on the exhale h relaxed his shoulders. “But what’s been done to it is good. It’s—a memory. A reminder. That it can’t be allowed to happen again. And I—it makes me sick that it exists, but it’s there and it teaches people. To not forget. I hate it, but—the purpose it serves by continuing to be there—that’s _something_ to me.” _ _

___And you think that—what? If I turn my old manor into some sort of mutant refuge, that’ll make the horrors of what happened to me there lessen? That it’ll make it ok, somehow?_ _ _

__“It doesn’t have to burned ground,” Erik insisted. “It can be fertile land. It can be the beginning of something.”_ _

___Oh, it was the beginning of something, certainly_ , Charles thought darkly. _ _

__“Charles,” Erik closed his eyes, struggling to keep calm. He swallowed and then gave Charles an intent, intense look. “I want this.”_ _

___Want what?_ Charles asked helplessly. _The house? Have at it. I’ll put it to your name if that’s what you want. Tear it down yourself for all I care, just don’t bloody make me watch.__ _

__“These children need safety, Charles,” Erik leaned closer, eyes disquietingly earnest. Charles hadn’t realized how bloody puppyish the bugger could be. “They need a safe place to learn to use their powers and get to know themselves. The house is huge and isolated. It’s perfect.”_ _

__Charles turned that over in his mind for a long moment, as Erik stared at him in silence._ _

___You_ , he started at length, _want me to use the house my father tortured me in—to build a mutant school?__ _

__Erik took a deep breath. “You know I wanted children.”_ _

__Charles looked at him sidelong, wary. _In that case perhaps there’s something I should tell you, though I should like to think you figured it out on your own already. You see, two men can’t—__ _

__“Charles,” Erik leaned forward abruptly and wrapped a hand around Charles’ throat—not, as it would seem at a first glance, to intimidate or threat, but because it was the closest to his face he could touch without causing agony._ _

__“You’re going to die,” he murmured. “And I’m probably immortal. I need something to do with myself. I need you to give me a reason not to go mad and burn the world to a crisp after I put you in the ground.”_ _

__Charles was doubtful for a moment. _I could probably kill you_ , he said finally. _ _

__“I have every certainty that you could,” Erik nodded. “And we both know you won’t.”_ _

__Considering he’d failed to let him die once and then failed to kill him twice, that was probably a safe enough assumption._ _

___You should know better than to ask me to save the world_ , Charles said tiredly. _I’d love to see it burn.__ _

__“Charles—“_ _

___No_ , Charles allowed his telepathy to flow over Erik’s scarred skin like a silk sheet, smooth and cool, sliding off like water off feathers until it pooled around them in rippling waves, reaching outwards like concussive circles. Charles left alone was still, deep waters, but Erik was a pebble in free fall. _You’ve made up your mind that you must have this. If that’s what you want then—the house is yours. But you must be cruelly mad if you think it’s a good idea to pout me around defenseless children. I hate children. I loathe innocence. I’ll rip them apart for fun.__ _

__“You won’t,” Erik shook his head slightly. “You wouldn’t do that to me after giving me this.”_ _

__Charles allowed himself to go completely limp on the bed. Erik shifted, stood and then, carefully but firmly, got himself on the bed._ _

___Mind the cast_ , Charles whispered into his mind._ _

__“I won’t hurt you,” Erik said with confidence. He arranged himself to curve around Charles, sliding his arm beneath the small of the telepath’s back and pulling him carefully close so his chest was against Charles’ ribs. He rested his head on the pillow, mindful not to touch his nose to Charles’ ruined face._ _

__“You can still be a hermit. I won’t ask you to teach them. All I want is for you to help me keep them safe. You can do that much—the world’s most powerful telepath.”_ _

___There’s one more powerful than me_ , Charles corrected sleepily. Erik’s fast-working metabolism meant his body put out heat like a furnace. _Or she will be, once she grows into it.__ _

__They stayed like that for a moment, Erik matching his breaths to the slow, rhythmic fall of Charles’ chest._ _

___Don’t fool yourself that you’re only protecting them,_ he said after a long while. _You’re raising an army. You’re training soldiers. Creating loyalties.__ _

__“We’ll need it one day,” Erik said with certainty, eyes closed._ _

__The day was bright but the curtains were drawn on the window, creating scattered shadows across the sterile white room. One of those shadows detached from the wall and went to sprawl, coal-eyed, across the doorway. Erik’s body relaxed further, mind eased by the knowledge that he was safe if Charles was near._ _

__The nurse that came several minutes later smiled when Erik gave her a cold, distrustful look. She checked the iv and monitors, made annotations on the chart, and made no comments on the way Erik was draped around Charles, one knee pinning Charles’ good right leg, right hand resting possessively low on Charles’ stomach. Erik scowled at her, and she turned hastily away to fuss over the water jug in the nearby table._ _

__Her shoulders relaxed._ _

__“I don’t have to die, you know,” she said, turning around slowly. She smirked. Her voice was sweet and low, but her eyes were ice-blue and glittering. Erik’s heart started beating madly in his chest, breath catching. Over by the door, in the darkness, Baskerville’s eyes blazed. “Flesh is just a vessel, after all.”_ _

__She blinked. Smiled shyly at Erik. “Water, dear?”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see this is the end of this story but only the begginiing of something else so feel free to let your imagination tell you what a school run by a sociopath and a psychopath and their wild free-roaming telepathic murdering hellhound look like!
> 
> _Enjoy yourselves._
> 
> THANK YOU EVERYONE!


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